Shadow Chronicles 3: Painful Truth
by moonshadow2012
Summary: The World Division is back and have created a device that will destroy all non-shadow-based life forms.Can Phineas, Ferb, and the gang stop them before its too late?
1. prologue

_I need another story_

_Somethin to get off my chest_

_My life is kinda boring_

_Need something that I can confess_

_Till my sleeves are stained red_

_From all the truth that I've said_

_Come by it honestly I swear_

_Thought you saw me wink, no_

_I'm on the brink, so_

_Tell me what you want to hear_

_Somethin that'll light those ears_

_I'm sick of all the insinceres _

_Gonna give all my secrets away_

_This time, don't need another perfect lie_

_Don't care if the critics ever jump in line_

_Gonna give all my secrets away_

Phineas Flynn sat at his desk in his room with the door locked. He opened up the photo album he had hidden under his bed for years. He flipped through the pages until he got to a certain picture, frayed from all the times he'd looked at it, took it out, folded it, unfolded it, held it close to his chest. He traced the figures in the picture as he read his mother's beautifully penmanship on the caption.

_June 13, 2000_

_Phineas and Arianna Henele were born_

_My beautiful twin babies_

Phineas smiled shakily and traced his twin's face in the picture. _She would've been so beautiful. _He thought wistfully. He heard Ferb's heavy footsteps on the stairs and quickly closed the book, shoving it under his bed and opening the door. He smiled his signature smile when he saw his brother, followed by Isabella and Candace. They would never know how much he cried inside of himself.

So that's the beginning, and you might think it's good, or you might be a little confused by the time the second chapter comes around if you haven't read my other books. So, start with Discovery, then go to Not The Only Ones. But be sure to come back to this one. I'll write more soon, and the song 'Secrets' by One Republic is kind of the theme – you'll see why soon.


	2. Bugged

Phineas' pov

I woke up to the alarm clock screaming in my ear and hit it hard on the snooze button. Ferb was sitting up in bed already, grinning. I cracked an eye open as he kept staring at me.

"What are you so happy about?" I groaned. "It's way too early." Ferb grinned even bigger.

_What is today? _He asked. I frowned.

"I don't know." I said. He gaped at me in disbelief. "What?" I asked. "What am I forgetting?"

_It's the first day of summer you idiot! _Ferb yelled in telepathy. I was instantly awake and out of bed.

"Awesome!" I yelled. "Ferb! I know what we're going to do today!" He rolled his eyes.

_When do you not? _

"good point. Do you have any suggestions?" I asked. He shook his head, then paused.

"Why don't we go spook Isabella by seeing what she's doing instead of her coming to us?" He said. I grinned.

"Brilliant!" I said. "Let's go see what Izzy is up to!"

Isabella's pov

"Hey Isabella. Wha-cha do-in?" A sing-song voice asked from the gateway. I turned around and blushed as I saw Phineas and Ferb come through the gate side-by-side as usual.

"Oh nothing. What are you doing?" I asked.

"Seeing what you're doing." Phineas replied matter-of-factly. I grinned, caught up in Phineas-land for a moment. "Are you okay Izzy?" He asked. I nodded, realizing I'd been staring at him. I loved when he called my 'Izzy'.

"Isabella?" My dad called from the house. "Isa – oh there you are. Hello boys." He said, coming out onto the porch, already dressed for work.

"Hello Mr. Monogram." Phineas said. Ferb saluted comically. I giggled, then turned to my dad with puppy eyes.

"Daddy, do you have to go to work today? It's the first day of summer! Can't you stay home?" I asked.

"Wish I could sweetheart, but I have a breach in security, and none of the agents can go unnoticed long enough to figure out what it is." He said. A light bulb went off over Phineas' head.

"Mr. Monogram, if Ferb and I build you a tiny spy bug, can you stay home with Iz-Isabella?" He asked. Dad thought about it.

"Well I guess it's worth a shot." He said. Phineas grinned.

"Great! We'll have it ready for you in twenty minutes tops." He said, leaving the yard with Ferb at his heels. I turned to my Dad.

"They'll be back in 5." I said. "We better hide Phineas' birthday gift."

Candace's pov

"Yeah Stacy! Phineas' birthday is in _two days _and I still haven't gotten him a gift! What am I gonna do?" I said into the phone. I was freaking out.

"Well Ferb's birthday was last month, right? What did you get him?" She asked. I thought back to last month. I had gotten Ferb something pretty good. What was it?

"Oh yeah." I said. "I got him a picture of Vanessa Doofinshmirtz." I said. "Actually, several pictures. I even digitally inserted Ferb into a couple."

"So get Phineas a photo album of Isabella." Stacy said in a shrugging-tone.

"Yeah but nobody knows Phineas likes Isabella. _Phineas _doesn't even know Phineas likes Isabella." I pointed out.

"_I _know Phineas likes Isabella. And I'm pretty sure Ferb does too." She said.

"Ferb is a ladies man and you spend almost as much time around the boys as I do." I said.

"Good point. Why don't you come over and we can brainstorm together?"

"Great! I'll be right there! Thanks Stace." I hung up and left the house yelling to Mom that I'd be at Stacy's. I jogged around the block towards the Hirano house to get my brain moving. I was so focused on trying to come up with what to get Phineas that I ran right into a short woman with black hair and silver eyes. "Sorry." I said, embarrassed. She just smiled.

"No problem at all." She said, her voice light with a faint accent.

"Are you new it the neighborhood? I don't think I've seen you before." I said. She shrugged.

"Just passing through. I came by to see if I could find some friends of mine. Do you happen to know a Phineas Flynn?" She asked. I was a little surprised.

"Yeah, he's my brother. My name is Candace Flynn." I said. Her eyes widened slightly.

"Really? What a surprise. When you see him, tell him that Camille said hi." She said. "Oh, you dropped this." She held out my phone. I took it gratefully.

"Thanks I don't know what I'd do without it." I said. She smiled in a creepy way.

"Me either." She brushed past me and vanished. Literally, I turned around and she was not there. It freaked me out and I decided not to tell Phineas about it. After all, what good would creeping him out right before his birthday do?

Camille's pov

She fell for it like she fell for that stupid powerless blond. She was so focused on how creepy my disappearing was that she didn't realize that I had bugged her phone. With any luck, she wouldn't notice until I got the information I needed. I dropped form my position in the tree and headed to where I knew I would find Carter – at Doofinshmirtz Evil Incorporated.

OOOOOO. Things is heating up fast! Are you keeping up with me? Hope so because we're about to speed up. Hang on tight!


	3. Vanessa's Hunch

Vanessa's pov

I woke up at around 6:30am to drills and power tools noisily moving around and building things in the other room. I moaned and rolled out of bed. I hated spending summer with my dad. I hated spending weekends with my dad. Why did Mom think this was a good idea? Oh well, at least I was closer to Ferb…

"Dad!" I yelled, marching out into the giant empty space outside my room in my pajamas. "What is going on in here?" My way was blocked suddenly by several creepy men in black. Suddenly, I was worried. That couldn't mean anything good. I pushed past them. "Dad! Dad!" I yelled, bursting into the main room of his house – the one where he always fights, aheh, _loses to _Perry the Platypus. Dad looked up from a small device he was prepping.

"Oh Vanessa, what are you doing up so early?" He asked.

"Never mind that, why are these people in our house?" I asked. "Your house." I corrected.

"Oh those guys? They're just the minions of my new friends – Carter, Camille, Tark, and Karo." He gestured to four people who looked like they were ready to kill somebody. The girl – Karo I think – was also a total rip-off of Doctor Octopus.

"Where did you meet these guys again?" I asked, suddenly very conscious that I wasn't dressed yet.

"We met at an Evil Science Convention in the lower Tri-State area." He said. "They asked me to build this for them." I looked at the egg-shaped device.

"What exactly is that?" I asked.

"It's a holding device for a very large amount of power. With it, you can control anything that's inside of it. Like, you know, plasma or nuclear power or the like." He went back to working on it. I stared at the one named Carter I think it was.

"you look familiar." I said. "Have we met?" He shook his head and widened his eyes innocently.

"No, not at all. Pleased to make your acquaintance Vanessa." He said. I nodded.

"Yeah. Whatever." I walked back to my room and laid down on my bed, thinking. Where had I seen him before? I laughed a little. Maybe Ferb could get his brother…his brother! What's his face – Phineas! Yeah, Phineas. It was Phineas' Dad! Suddenly it all came back to me. Two summers ago…he had tried to kill Phineas and Ferb. Tried to kill Ferb. I picked up my phone and pressed the speed dial number I had assigned my friend.

"Ferb?" I asked. "I need to talk to you about something. Some_one. _How well can your brother recognize people in a picture?"

Phineas' pov

No. Way. How could they have followed me here? The World Division was in Danville! They were after me…or worse, Ferb! I remembered how last summer Karo had almost killed him…and exposed our secret to him. What was I supposed to do now?


	4. Reinforcements

Liz's pov

I woke up in the middle of the night and sat up. I wondered what had woken me up. Then I heard my phone vibrate again. I looked over at Ellie's sleeping form, then picked up the phone and snuck into the bathroom.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Liz?" The voice said. I felt my voice catch in my throat as memories of last summer poured into my head. Good, bad, and _very _bad.

"Ph-Phineas?" I asked. I cleared my throat. "Why are you calling me?"

"I need help." He said.

Josh's pov

"No. No. No. No." I said, adding a 'no' every time he tried to say something.

"Josh why can't you just listen to me –"

"NO!" I hung up and walked over to the kitchen area in our small apartment. Nick raised an eyebrow and I smiled softly. "It was nothing." I said.

"Well nothing it may be but it is June 11 and I am_ bored._" My older sister Carmen said. "How about you guys?" Nick nodded enthusiastically. I grinned.

"Let's do something!" I said. "Something like –"

_BRRRIIINNG!_ The doorbell went off. Carmen rolled her eyes and stretched out on the couch.

"Not it." She said. Carmen is really laid back. She does almost nothing except encourage us to build bigger and better stuff and work at her hotdog place at the mall that nobody remembers the name of. Nick pointed at me. I sighed.

"Fine, I'll go answer the stupid doorbell." I said. I walked over to the door in the other room, side-stepping boxes and potted plants and books. When you have 3 kids with a dad who's never home, you get a really messy apartment.

"Hi Josh." Liz said when I opened the door. "Don't return phone calls anymore?"

Phineas' pov

"I already told you two I am not doing this." Josh said. "I like being alive."

'What's up Josho?" His older sister asked.

"Leave Carmen, the kids are talking." Josh said. She held up her hands and left.

"Josh you have to." I said. "Ferb could be in danger. What would you do if Nick was in trouble and _I _wouldn't help _you_?"

"I would kick your butt." Josh said. Then he got a scared expression on his face. "Oh." He said. I grinned, but not a happy grin. "Hey, hey, hey!" He said as I moved towards him. "Why don't you just get Liz to help you?"

"Um we're talking about the _World Division _here." I said. "Me and Liz isn't gonna cut it."

"And me you and Liz will?" He pointed out. I sighed.

"The more the merrier.' I said. Josh looked between me and Liz, seeing th grim expressions on our faces. He sighed.

"Okay I'll help you." He said.

"And so will we." Ellie said from the doorway. "I don't exactly know what's going on, but you're not doing anything without us." We looked at each other and shrugged.

"Let's do this." Liz said dangerously.


	5. Contact

Phineas' pov

The first thing we had to do was make up some pretty believable stories so their families wouldn't flip out. We left messages and made fake voice recordings and e-mails. We were done in about five minutes. I lead them to the Doofinshmirtz Evil Incorporated building.

"This is where you friend saw them?" Liz said. I nodded.

"Yeah. Where do you think –" I began.

"There!" Josh said. We all turned to a burned-out building with two capital letters engraved in the ashes. _WD. _I frowned, seeing the people being wheeled away into ambulances. But even I could see there wasn't nearly enough. I looked at my friends.

"In hindsight, we probably should have noticed that in the first place." I said. "Be right back." I slipped into the shadows and pulled on a mask. I changed my hair color to a light brown and took off my shirt to reveal a skin-tight black tank top. I walked over to the men trying to cram people into ambulances. "Need help?" I asked. He nodded, confused. I levitated the remaining people and his eyes widened. "Are you going to just keep standing there with your mouth open or do I have to take that girl too?" I asked. He closed his mouth and pointed in the direction of the hospital. I nodded. "I know the way." I said.

Liz's pov

While Phineas was busy helping the men with getting the patients to the hospital, I was busy talking to the ashes left behind. Yes, talking. Don't judge me! I sifted it through my fingers slowly, feeling it, getting information from it.

_Who did this? _I asked.

_Bad. _The ashes said. _Big, bad. Powerful. _

_Where did they go? _I asked.

_Towards great light. _It said softly. _When big light at this._

_Thank you. _I said, standing up. I walked over to my friends, almost bumping into Phineas who was also moving towards the others.

"They went that way." I said, pointing to the direction of the sun. Phineas nodded, and walked quickly towards it. I caught up with effort. "Why are you walking so fast?" I asked.

"They're going towards my house." He said.

Phineas' pov

"Ferb? Ferb!" I said, running over to my big brother. He looked up, bored and mildly amused at the anxiety in my face. I hugged him until he told me he was having trouble breathing. "Sorry." I said, embarrassed.

"That's okay. Hello girls, Nick." He said. Josh glared at him, but quickly looked away and whistled when Ferb directed his attention to him. I grinned. "There was someone here for you earlier." He said. "Asked me to give you this flash drive. Left right after that." He handed me a small black flash drive. I looked down at it. **WD** was printed on it in big letters. I clutched it and went upstairs, followed closely by Liz and Josh. Ellie and Nick stayed downstairs to talk – if that word even applies to them – to Ferb. I plugged it into my laptop and waited.

"Hello Phineas." Carter said, appearing on the screen. "Thank you for giving me full control of whatever computer this is." I silently cursed myself for not thinking ahead to this scenario.

"What do you want Carter?" I asked. He smiled. It was not very big or appealing. I don't know what Mom saw in him.

"In a metaphysical sense? World domination. In a metaphorical sense? World domination. In a metaphaphorical sense? _World domination._" **(A/N thanks to Wonder'sgirl98 for the metaphaphorical)** I groaned.

"I know you want world domination." I said. "I mean what do you want in Danville?"

"World domination." He said simply. I looked at him, curious in spite of myself. He grinned in a way creepily similar to mine. "Underneath Danville is a device that will wipe out all non-shadow-based life forms." He said. I laughed nervously.

"Um, I'm guessing from the _Tri-State Area?_" I said hopefully.

"Nope the world." He said. "You have basically less than 24 hours. So, uh, good luck with that." He grinned evilly and the screen fizzed and went black.

"We have a major problem." Josh said. "If we don't get there soon, millions, no _billions _of people will die." I nodded.

"No question. We have to stop them." Liz said.

"Let's do this guys." I said.

"I don't know what that was." Ferb said as we all whipped around to see him standing at the doorway with Ellie and Nick. "But I want in."

So I have absolutely nothing to say because I am skilled like that. Yeah, so REVIEW and after you do that read Milk Tooth, The Super Random Awesome Show, and Uncovery by irken24, and Phineas, Isabella and The Dream Machine by Phinbella Fan 13 and, if you're into Alice in Wonderland, Cry of Wonderland and Wonder by Wonder'sgirl98.


	6. Recruits

Isabella's pov

"Wha-cha do-in?" I practiced in the mirror, making myself as cute as possible. I sighed. Why didn't Phineas notice me? I tried on a loose hoodie and baggy jeans with sunglasses. "What ya doin?" I asked the mirror. Too rapper. I tried on fishnets, a black tank top, skin tight ripped jeans showing off my figure, and a couple streak-extensions in my hair and black lipstick. "Hey. Whacha doin." I said in an I-don't-really-care tone. Too Goth. I tried on a pretty dress with a simple pattern. "Whacha doin?" I asked in a high-up tone. Too old Hollywood. And what the heck was the black-and-white effect about? I tried on a tight bikini top and a long skirt that was holding onto my hips tightly. Both had lots of shimmery and jingly attachments. I had on lots of bangle bracelets and long earrings. "Whacha doin?" I asked in a sweet, melodious tone. Too belly dancer. I tried on a short skirt and midriff skintight top in bright colors, my hair in a high ponytail. "Whacha doin?" I asked in a bubbly tone. Too cheerleader. I tried on a pair of geeky glasses and a sweater vest over khaki pants, carrying books. "What are you doing?" I asked. Too nerdy. I put my hair in the shape of cat ears and dotted my cheeks with black makeup in the shape of whiskers. I put on a costume that made half of my body seem invisible. Too Cheshire Cat. I put on an old-timey rain coat and a top hat with an umbrella. Too Mary Poppins.

Too Mad Hatter.

Too White Rabbit.

Too Teacher.

Too Cowgirl.

Too Hannah Montana.

Too Justin Beiber.

Too Michael Jackson.

"Isabella!" A voice yelled from outside my window. I quickly changed back to my regular Isabella clothes and looked out.

"Hi Phineas!" I said. "Whacha doin?"

"Nothing much. Just wanted to say hi." He said, seeming oddly nervous for him.

"You sure?" I asked. He nodded. Then he opened his mouth, but was interrupted by a yell from the direction of his house.

"Phineas! Are you coming or what?" A girl's voice asked.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"Nobody." Phineas said _much _too quickly. Then he was gone. I sat down on my bed. There was another girl in Phineas' yard. There was another girl in Phineas' yard. And he didn't want me to know about her. Could it be…? I shook my head. No way. At least…not if I had anything to say about it. I grinned evilly and stroked my Fireside Girl sash lovingly.

"Good thing I got my Martial Arts Patch. Twice." I said.

"Phineas?" I called. No one in the backyard. No one in the living room. No one in the kitchen. I heard voices from Phineas' bedroom. I felt my face get red in anger. No girl had ever been in Phineas' bedroom outside his family. No girl except _me._ And I was not losing that title to anyone, no matter how nice I was supposed to be.

I walked up the stairs and over to Phineas and Ferb's room. I was about to go in when I heard the word 'Carter'. I stopped and put my ear up to the door.

"We're going to have to move fast." The girl's voice said. "How soon do you think you could get the DNA sample from Vanessa?"

"Soon enough." Ferb said. "What do you think Phineas? How soon can you make a tracking device for this – Transistor?"

"As soon as we get enough DNA to trace exactly where it is." He said confidently. "But we have to do this all very fast. We only have 24 hours."

"Well whatever 'this' is," I said, walking into the room. "I'm in."

"I didn't ask you." Phineas said coldly. I glared at him.

"And I didn't ask you." I said. "Man up Flynn, I'm coming – and before you answer make sure you know that I didn't get to be the head of Fireside Girl Troop 46321 by losing arguments." Phineas sighed.

"Fine you can come." He said. "But you have to do exactly what I say."

"When do we do it any other way?" I asked softly, not rudely, but almost lovingly. He nodded and half-smiled.

"Okay team. Let's save the world." He said.

Ferb's pov

"I need you to get me the DNA of anyone who touched the machine." I said to Vanessa. She smiled.

"I can do you one better." She said. "I can get you the whatever-you-call-machine-DNA from the thing itself."

"Great." I said.

"On one condition. I'm coming with you." She said.

"No." I said. "You're human. It's way too dangerous." She smirked.

"But, I am taller than you right now." She said. "Tallness rule always triumphs." I sighed.

"Phineas is gonna kill me."

Liz's pov

"No! You two little morons can NOT come!" I yelled at the two boys. They looked hurt and it was really, really sad. "Well maybe – NO! NO! You can't!"

"Please!" the big one pleaded, looking at me with oddly cute and hypnotic puppy eyes.

"No!" I said.

"Please." He said again. He looked just so cute….it was like saying no to a defenseless kitten. I moaned.

"Fine." I said. "But you two are the last people who can come. No other freaks allowed." _I hope. _I added silently.

"That is disturbing." The Indian one said.

"Mention it again and die." The big one said threateningly. I sighed. We had a lot of work to do.


	7. Plan of Doom

Josh's pov

"Um, did you happen to think if we jumped out of a blimp we could die?" I asked. Phineas rolled his eyes.

"Like I said before. We do not. Jump out of. The blimp." He said in his talking-to-idiots voice. I glared at him.

"Yeah I was just trying to see how well I could get you side-tracked." I said. "Is there any chance you guys will let me come up with the plan?" I asked.

"Absolutely none." Liz told me.

"Yeah and what's so wrong with our plans anyway?" Ferb asked.

"Not your plans - their plans. The terrible two who tried to kill each other last summer." I said. "All their plans are either A) suicidal, B) stupid, or C) all of the above."

"Or D) anti-Josh." Phineas put in. I nodded.

"No, if you switched C and D then we could say all of the above for every plan." Liz said. Phineas grinned.

"Exactly." He turned to me. "So Josh, are you going to continue to be annoying or are you going to let us make a plan that will involve the least amount of anti-Josh possible?" I shut up.

"So if Vanessa's right -" Liz began.

"And she is." Vanessa put in.

" – and she is, then we could follow the trail of the Transistor to –"

"Or we could just take a straight shot through Danville's underground." Ferb pointed out. We all stared at him and blinked, one at a time.

"Are you insane?" Buford said finally. "Did you not get that in the sewers alone there are alligators, water moccasins, tarantulas, black widows, and these creepy dudes who are apparently trying to kill us?"

"So basically you're saying you're afraid of a little water?" Ferb said. Buford looked at the rest of us, who were watching him intently. I hoped he would say yes so we could get out of this insane plan.

"No." He said, not realizing that he had just condemned us all.

"So it's settled. We'll go right after Phineas downloads the Transistor's – uh, DNA thing – we can go follow Ferb's plan." Isabella said.

"His Plan of Doom." Baljeat said nervously.

"I agree with the little guy." I said.

"Too bad." Phineas said from his desk.

"What? Don't I get a say in this?"

"No." Liz said.

"I hate collaborating with you guys." I said.


	8. Into The Depths

Phineas' pov

We all walked over to the building of Doofinshmirtz Evil Inc. I shivered. I had bad memories connected with this place. I looked at Ferb, then to the dozens of entrances covering the road. I hoped he knew which one we needed to go into to get to the Transistor. He looked at me and pointed to the one a few feet to the right of us. I looked around, but luckily no one was anywhere around. I telekinetically lifted the cover and jumped down into the hole. There was a short, narrow level where I stood, then a drop-off of an unknown height. All I could see past it was black. There was a narrow, rusty ladder going down.

"Is it safe? Or are we gonna be eaten by the crocodiles?" Josh asked. I grinned up at them.

"It's safe. It can hold us. But NOT ALL AT ONCE." I said, making sure they could hear me. I didn't know what would happen if there was a repeat of the Spleen Island incident _here. _They nodded, and soon Ferb was at my side. He pointed down the ladder and I nodded.

"When do I stop?" I asked.

"When I tell you to." He said simply. I smirked and began to descend. Isabella followed me, then Liz, Josh, Buford, Nick, Ellie, Ferb, Vanessa, and finally, Baljeat. We descended lower and lower and lower until the sunlight disappeared from view. I gulped, suddenly clutched by claustrophobia. I swayed on the ladder, closing my eyes and trying to focus. I felt Isabella's hand on my shoulder and her voice in my ear.

"Are you okay?" She asked. I nodded, then remembered the blackness.

"Sure. Yeah, yeah, fine." I said. Then I kept climbing. Down, down, down. So far down. Into the depths.


	9. Don't Light A Match In The Sewers

Liz's pov

"We're there." Ferb called down past me and the rest of us to Phineas. Soon we were all in a long, narrow hallway. Phineas' flashlight beam didn't reach even a third of the way down it. I looked around, sniffed, and gasped for air.

"What is that smell?" I asked, the smell making my nose hairs curl. The rest of the kids were waving their hands in front of their noses and gagging.

_Did I forget to mention we would have to go through the sewers? _Ferb asked.

"Oh no." I said. "The what?"

"That was NOT in the brochure!" Josh yelled. "You two are insane!"

"Hey, I didn't know about this either." Phineas protested. Ellie laughed lightly.

"Just our way of saying 'don't keep anything from us'." Ferb, Nick, and Ellie walked past us and down the tunnel.

"Jerks." Josh muttered. We followed them down the sewer tunnel. It was bad enough _smelling _the crap, but then we came to a cross-roads. And there was another little problem. "No way." Josh said. "No, no, no, no, no, no. I am NOT walking through the _sewers._"

"Agreed." I said. Phineas and the others nodded in solemn agreement.

"No sewer-diving." Phineas said. Ferb smirked.

_You kids scared? _He teased.

"No way." We all chorused.

"Yes." Baljeat and Josh said.

"Gee, thanks for volunteering to go first." Ellie said, having a great time watching us shudder.

"I'm not going first and you can't make me." Josh said.

_Tick tock. _Ferb said. _Only 19 hours left. _We all looked at each other in indecision.

"Oh for crying out loud." Phineas said, moving in front of us and jumped into the sewage to a loud 'ewwwwwwwwww' from the rest of us. He turned and frowned at us. "Okay, who's gonna be second. And I _know _it won't be Lizzie. She's too predictable." I knew it was bait, but he did not get away with dissing me anytime, anywhere.

"I will come in there just to push your face in it. Literally." I said, jumping in after him. I moaned as the sewage squished over my feet and up my ankles, then shins, then up to my knees. I made my way over to Phineas and punched him really hard in the arm. "Jerk." I said. I was followed by Isabella, giving me the evil eye, then Vanessa, then Ferb, then Josh, then Nick and Ellie, side by side, then Buford, who seemed to find it very amusing, then Baljeat, who was always last for some reason – maybe, um, that he was a scaredy cat.

"Ah man." Phineas muttered as the world went black.

"Did you drop the flashlight?" I asked threateningly. "Because if you did – "

"Save it." He said irritably. "I think it just went dead."

"Well, here, let me recharge it for you." I said.

"NO! LIZ! DON'T!" Everyone yelled, but it was too late. I lit a ball of electricity on my palm. And the world exploded. Literally. And I realized that there was a reason you don't bring lighted objects into the sewers.


	10. Chamber of Secrets

Josh's pov

"Liiiiiiizz!" I yelled. "You are deeeeeeaad!" I thought I heard her say something like 'get off me you Neanderthal' when I landed on top of her. I scrambled up, because, let's face it, Liz is not the one you want to be on top of when she doesn't want you to. For the same reason the crap exploded.

"Where are we?" Liz asked as she got up. We had fallen into a gigantic cavern. It was lit with torches that for some reason were still burning even though it looked like there hadn't been anyone in here for ages. The walls had strange patterns and cave-like drawings on them. They were unnaturally smooth and carved out of the rock.

"Wow." Phineas breathed.

"It's beautiful." Isabella said.

"It's kinda creepy." Vanessa muttered. I wondered what she was thinking that she would say it was creepy. I mean, Goths like dark rooms lit with fire, right?

I shook my head and took out one of my many cameras I always kept with me. I snapped a couple picture – a couple being a couple _dozen _of every detail of the room. I worked with getting them perfect, and tried not to think about the real reason I was so obsessed with photo evidence of every aspect of my life.

Vanessa's pov

I've had bad cave experiences. And as far as I know, this was just another big, stinking, dangerous cave. I didn't want to be here with Ferb. Caves ruin relationships.

Dispite breaking several bones in caves, there was another, deeper reason that I hated them. When I was 10 – as old as the Indian kid, Baljeat I think his name was – Dad had taken Mom and me to the Danville sugar mines. But when we got there all he wanted to talk about was how funny it would be if the miners were crushed in the sugar. Mom thought that was rude. That was the beginning of the gap that grew ever-so-slowly wider between them. When I was 13 we were on one of our yearly family trips when we got to a place with these whistling caves. Mom wanted to go to them because she thought it would be cool. Dad didn't want to and I didn't either, just having broken my leg in a cave on a field trip. Dad made me choose a side and that was the start of the out-loud, in-front-of-our-child fights. Dad tried to please Mom by taking us back to the whistling caves when I was 14. He made a big deal about wanting her to just chill out. I fell and broke my arm, they broke their marriage. End of backstory. Gosh I'm getting to sound like my Dad.

Phineas' pov

The torchlights flickered high above us. We were too far away to tell, but I knew the flames were maybe five feet tall. I shivered. Tall fire. Fire. My mind flashed to a scene that had taken place years ago, but still haunted my nightmares today.

_The walls were collapsing all around me. I crawled between the legs of burning tables and chairs, calling for her. Calling for her. She wouldn't answer. The ceiling was cracking with the effort of staying above our heads. Every instinct in my body wanted me out. Out of the burning rooms with oxygen that wouldn't breathe right. Out of the house that was groaning and creaking like a dying monster. Out of this place. Flames licked the walls and the furniture. I finally heard her answering. I crawled towards where she was, then screamed as the world in front of me, behind me, on every side of me and underneath me burst into flames. I had to find her, had to keep her safe, had to…_

"Phineas?" Isabella snapped her fingers in front of my face. "Are you okay?" I nodded, tearing my gaze from the torches.

"Yeah, yeah, fine." I said. "I think I'm gonna go see what Liz is up to." I left Izzy-Isabella standing there, neither of us satisfied with what had just happened.

Ferb's pov

"_Ferb, do you see the cave patterns?" Mum asked me. I nodded, my 3-year-old head and kept my thumb in my pointed out the different pictures, her eyes glowing, making her look for all the world like an angel. I thought she was an angel. For now…_

One year later I had no Mum. She left. Half a year after that her friend Elina and Elina's younger sister Sammy, my friend, left too. At the 2 year mark, I no longer had a sister. When I was 5 ½ I said goodbye to England and moved to America. When I was 8 I had a new family. When I was 13 I got everything back, just to watch them all leave again. I'm 15 now.

**Sorry I haven't updated in a while and sorry that this probably bored you to death. Anyway, just had to set up for the 'painful truth' part of the story. Hope you enjoyed! R&R and read Milk Tooth by irken24 when you get done here. Which is now, so go read about vampires!**


	11. Realization

Phineas' pov

I walked over to Liz, expecting a 'what do you think _you're _doing' or 'get lost you maniac'. Instead, she beckoned me closer. She held out a book. I took it, flipping through the pages. It was a bunch of information on the background of the High Command. I laughed.

"Karo dropped out of school? Dropped out?" I asked. Liz smiled wanly.

"Yeah, kicked out would have been my first guess too." She said, reading my thought process. I fought back a stunningly large need to melt her brain by whatever way possible and raised an eyebrow instead.

"What did you want me to see?" I asked. She sighed.

"Page 35." She said. I flipped to page 35. It was a picture of my Dad - Carter. I looked up quickly, then back down, swallowing hard. My eyes widened.

"He got _remarried_?" I asked in shock. "Who would be stupid enough – " I stopped, my mom was NOT stupid. Liz smirked.

"I'll tell you who." She said. "_My _Mom." I stared at her.

"Your – your Mom?" I whispered.

"Yeah." She said. "My mom married your Dad. Technically, that makes us – "

"Step siblings." I breathed in disbelief.

Liz's pov

The look on Phineas' face would have been funny if I hadn't been so close to the cause. All this time I had spent wondering if my Mom was still out there, if she still loved me, why she left – and now I knew. She had been seduced by Phin's – Phineas' creep of a Dad! I felt my blood begin to boil. _Not now Lizzie. _I thought. _It's not his fault his Dad is such a _**CENSORED FOR INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT **I looked at Phineas – my _step-brother. _

"Also, look under 'children'." I said. Phineas' eyes widened.

"We have a – " He began.

"Half-sister." I said. "And because you were born on June 13 and I was born on June 14 – at 1am – that almost makes us twins so do not, I repeat, DO. NOT. – "

"Finish your sentences?" Phineas grinned mischeiveously. _SNAP_! My line between me and self-control broke.

Arches, 30 miles outside of Danville, 3rd person pov

The woman rocked the chair she was sitting in back and forth, back and forth. She looked out the window in the direction of the Quad-State Area. She sighed and looked at the picture of the smiling girl in her locket. She didn't even hear the tiny footsteps come into the room behind her.

"Mom?" The voice said. The woman turned around.

"Yes sweety?" She asked. The little girl's face screwed up.

"Mom, don't call me that." She said. "I'm not ice cream." The woman smiled softly, still amazed by the little one's large vocabulary. The girl held up a doll. "I found this in my closet." She said.

"Yes, that's Anna Lee." The woman said. The girl nodded.

"But her head wasn't at a 90 degree angle yesterday." She said. "Was Dad in my room?"

"I don't know hon, why don't you ask him later, when he comes home?" The woman asked. The little girl shivered.

"I don't know. I think there's something Dad's not telling us about his job." She said. "There's something not right going on around here." The woman smiled and got up, leading the 6-year-old to bed.

"Don't worry about it." She told the small child, but the girl still shivered when she got into bed.

"I dream about them." She said.

"About who sweetheart?" The woman asked.

"Them. The others." The girl answered. "The boy lives the closest. He has a triangle head and builds roller-coasters." The woman smiled as her daughter fell asleep. "And the girl." The child yawned. "The girl also builds stuff like that. They're enemies. The girl – she lives in the Quad-State Area." The woman froze. "Her name is – " The woman leaned closer. "Is Liz."

**Hope you enjoyed R&R and thanks for all the reviews so far!**


	12. IMPORTANT: Character Ages

**Okay so I got a review that was talking about how old the characters are and I realized that I probably should explain this sometime or another. In the Shadow Chronicles, I age the characters. Here are the ages of the books so far, and I hope this helps you – you know who you are – to feel less awkward.**

**Discovery:**

**Phineas: 10**

**Ferb: 13**

**Isabella: 10**

**Candace: 16**

**Vanessa: 16**

**Buford: 10**

**Baljeat: 8**

**Suzy: 5**

**Not The Only Ones:**

**Phineas: 11**

**Ferb: 14**

**Isabella: 10/11**

**Liz: 11**

**Ellie: 14**

**Josh and Nick *twins*: 13**

**Painful Truth:**

**Phineas: 12**

**Ferb: 15**

**Isabella: 12**

**Candace: 18**

**Vanessa: 18**

**Buford: 12/13**

**Baljeat: 10**

**Liz: 12**

**Ellie: 15**

**Josh and Nick: 14**

**Sera*: 6**

**And now that I've taken up a whole page helping you/boring you to death, I'm just gonna start a new chapter. Bet you're glad I upload by 2s now. **


	13. Truth or Dare

Vanessa's pov

We heard a sound that was between a growl and a scream. We all whipped around to see Phineas and Liz rolling on the floor, hitting each other. And this was not your normal sibling/friend wrestling type thing. I could tell by the way their eyes blazed in fierce anger and hatred that they really wanted to hurt, if not kill each other.

"Not again!" I heard Ferb mutter under his breath. He and Josh ran over to pull them apart, with me behind them trying to help. Ferb grabbed the younger boy's arm, then jumped back in shock. He looked at me, confused. "He burned me." Ferb said. I ran forward and grabbed the kids' shirts, but they easily shrugged me off. The way the two were fighting was disturbing. They were trying to kill each other, I swear. A minute ago they had been friends. Suddenly, Liz hit Phineas with – I am not joking when I say this – a blast of electricity from her hand. He hit the wall and slid down, clutching his arm where she had shot him. He pulled his hand away and I saw blood drip down. The look on the younger boy's face was unexplainable. Then something else impossible happened.

Phineas burst into flame.

I am not kidding you. I swear on my Dad's shrine to evil women (yes, he has one) that everything I'm about to tell you actually happened.

Phineas' enflamed body lunged towards Liz, tackling her to the ground as she screamed in a mixture of terror and disbelief. But she didn't express pain. That is, until he shoved her into the floor several times. I ran over to the two and tried to pull them apart. But YOU try pulling Molten Man and Electro apart.

"Ow!" I yelled, holding my burned hand. That got me mad. "Okay you two are going to stop being little brats right now or I swear, I will hurt you more than you want to hurt each other right now!" I said. The two looked up and I saw them slowly look a little less like demons and a little more confused.

"Is she threatening us?" Liz asked. "And why are you on top of me?" Phineas looked down at himself and realized that –

"I'm on FIRE!" He yelled. He jumped off Liz and huddled into a ball, shaking and shivering.

"You did it, undo it." I said simply, sucking my burnt finger. Correction, the _most burnt _of my fingers. Phineas' skin slowly returned to normal, and he breathed a sigh of relief. "Note to self, keep the two twerps apart." I muttered.

"What _was _that?" Isabella asked. I sighed.

"The brats lost control. Obviously." I said. "Now let's get a move on before we all die." I paused. "Well, me, at least."

"So." Liz said, walking behind me. We had decided to separate the girls and the boys until further notice, and I was fine with letting the manly men look for the dangerously dangerous. "Truth or Dare?" I looked behind me.

"you have got to be kidding me." I said, rubbing my recently-healed hand.

"Please Van?" She pleaded. I shook my head in disbelief. How could she be so horrible one minute, and so cute the next?

"Fine." I said. "Truth." I didn't want to see what kind of dares this one could cook up.

"What's up with you and Ferb?" She asked.

"Yeah, what's going on? And why does he draw you in the margins of his notebook?" Isabella asked. I blushed.

"He does what?" I asked.

"ANSWER THE QUESTION!" Liz thundered. Phineas laughed from up front.

"What's wrong Liz? Suffering from _another _mental breakdown?" He snickered.

"You're one to talk – don't make me tell everyone about your family's mental history!" Liz retorted.

"You two are NOT TALKING TO EACH OTHER!" Isabella and Ferb chorused.

"Whatever. So, Vanessa?" Liz asked. I sighed and lowered my voice.

"Okay, so I like him. A lot. But if any of you tell I will murder you." I said.

"What are you going to murder us with?" Isabella asked.

"My gun that I bring along." I said. "Just in case." They looked at me, trying to see if I was kidding. I wasn't. "Okay, my turn." I said. "Truth or dare, Liz."

"Are there any good dares here?" She asked. "Truth."

"Why did you and Phineas freak out on each other?" I asked.

"Long, boring story." Liz said bitterly. "Basically, he was the biggest mistake of my life and I never saw his dark side before it was too late." We were quiet. Then I looked at her expression. It was tortured, trying not to show her true feelings.

"Look, I've been in a lot of breakups, and I've never tried to kill any of my ex's." I said. Liz raised an eyebrow.

"Have you ever dated your step-brother?" She asked. Now _that _was unexpected.

**So, whadya think? **


	14. Mistrust

**Sorry I haven't been writing for a while – I got caught up in a great series. A couple of great series actually. I'm actually thinking of writing another series myself. Alternate reality type thing. The Chronicles of the Flame….something to think about right? Anyway…**

Ferb's pov

As far as I could tell, the girls had formed a conspiracy against us – but maybe that's just the Phineas related part of my mind talking. He couldn't tell what a girl wanted if his life depended on it. Love life wise, it did. And he still couldn't tell that his best friend was crazy about him. I looked back at the four girls who were deep in conversation. Conspiracy or not, those four – well, _three _at least – could cause some serious embarrassment for us guys. I decided to share my fears with the others.

"Don't be silly Ferb. The only evil one back there is Liz." Phineas said.

"What? No way is Liz evil!" Josh protested. Phineas rolled his eyes. Nick was watching all of us like we were lab rats. I don't like being watched like that.

"If the girls are planning something, why would they do it here? We're in the sewers for crying out loud!" Buford pointed out.

"Hey could we just stick to the problem at hand and worry about the girls later?" Baljeat wondered.

"Sure." Phineas said. "Maybe we could find a short-cut by going that way." He pointed down a dark passageway to our right.

"No." I said. "The GPS says to go that way." I pointed to the left.

"But if we get there faster - " Phineas began.

"We won't get there faster." I said. "At the best it's a round-about way to get there. At the second-best it's an alligator infested sewer system."

"And at the worst?" Baljeat asked nervously.

"At the worst it's a trap set by the World Division." Phineas finished. _I could've said that. _I thought. "But it's not. Look, I know this tunnel. It's a path to the innermost channels and chambers of underground Danville." He said. "Buford and I used to go there all the time when we were little kids."

"Wait, I thought you didn't know Buford before you moved in." I said. "And why were you in the sewers?"

"It's not the sewers." Buford said. "It's just a complicated maze. Not as complicated as the one you two built a while back but still complicated."

"Are you absolutely sure you won't lead us into certain doom and destruction?" Josh asked suspiciously.

"Yes." Phineas said.

"Definitely." Buford said. "Hopefully speaking." He added under his breath.

"Okay, good enough for me." Josh said, stepping over to stand by them.

"I just want to get out of here." Baljeat whimpered, also standing by them. Nick stepped over to stand by me.

"What's going on here?" Vanessa asked. "Are we choosing sides for a water fight or saving the world? Step it up losers – and Ferb."

"We're trying to decide which way to go. The shortcut or the GPS way." Phineas said.

"The GPs is totally reliable." I protested.

"And I'm not?" Phineas asked, sounding slightly defensive. _Uh oh. _

"Ummm..." I began. "Well, you do tend to overlook some vital things at times." I said.

"I'm with GPS." Vanessa interrupted. "What about the rest of you girls?"

"GPS." Ellie said. Liz stood by her sister, for once quiet. Isabella slowly walked over to join Phineas.

"Impasse." Phineas muttered. "Aria would love this."

"Who's Aria?" I asked. "What else are you lying to me about?"

"Else?" Phineas wondered, confused. I hit my forehead.

"You just don't get it do you?" I asked. "You never told me you were a Shadow, lied to me about knowing Buford before Danville, you lied to me about your little 'power failure' thing where you almost killed yourself back when you were 10, and you told me you and Candace were the only two kids in your family – you've lied to my for as long as I've known you, how can I trust you again?"

"Maybe we should all just step back and take a deep – " Baljeat began as he lost his footing and fell to the ground with a sickening _crunch. _

"Baljeat!" Phineas knelt beside him. "What hurts?"

"My ankle." Baljeat moaned.

"Can you move it?"

"I do not know!"

"This could complicate things." Phineas said.

**So I will try to write more frequently but I have a lot of complications now…no matter, I'll find a way to write, I still have free time. REVIEW!**


	15. Ambush

**And just because I love adding complications and OCs, I'm cutting away from our little heroes to a place far below Danville, far below even the Tri-State Area – ladies and gentlemen, I give you – **

Emma Fletcher's pov

"Ahhhhh." I breathed a sigh of contentment. "This is the life."

"Oh yeah." My best friend and trusted fellow MI6 agent Elina Kim agreed as she lounged beside me in a beach chair. "No mission, no villains, just us on a beach with no exploding volcano…"

"Hey guys!" My best friend's little sister and less-trusted fellow MI6 agent Sammy Kim yelled, running up to us. "You will not believe the waves out there! Wicked!" She high-fived my daughter, who was also an agent, Beka Fletcher.

"Yeah and I totally cut in on this surfer dudes wave – he was totally P.O.'d." Beka grinned.

"Just how big was this guy?" I wanted to know.

"He looked like a college jock on vacation from Alaska or Russia – seriously, this guy was not tan at all. But he was a great surfer. Cocky too. I couldn't resist." I smiled up at my daughter. She always knew how to get into trouble. Good thing her mother could hide a bazooka in a bikini – literally, don't ask.

"Hey when are we gonna do our visiting-Ferb-in-the-middle-of-the-night thing again?" Sammy asked.

"When all of Phineas' birthday festivities are over." I said.

"But Phineas' birthday is tomorrow." Beka pointed out.

"In the middle of the night it will _be _tomorrow." I said. "Do you want our cover to get blown?"

"No." Sammy and Beka admitted.

"Chill Elmo." Elina teased. At 25, she was only seven years younger than me. "We are the best agents in MI6 – as stated by everyone else in MI6. We'll be fine." I allowed myself to relax a bit. Until I saw _him. _

Not many people can say they've seen the World Division's Tark without his cape on. And those who can don't know who he is. I am one of the rare people who has seen him in both of his little personalities. So the minute I laid eyes on the broad, tan chest and piercing black eyes under the casual mop of black hair, the muscled arms and legs, the frame that seemed to be unreal, the height advantage that would shame a 6-foot grizzly, I knew we were in trouble.

"Don't look now but Trouble is on the horizon." I said.

"Who him?" Elina asked. "Yeah, trouble for his girlfriend." Sammy and Beka giggled, but I hushed them with the wave of a hand.

"He is trouble with a capital T-A-R-K." I insisted.

"Oh." Elina said. "Okay." She knew me well enough to let me think for a bit without interruption. Of course, after a couple minutes, she was off on her own little scheme. That scheme being dangerous and irrational, but hey, what do you expect from MI6's top spies? Good plans and rationality?

Elina's pov

"Hey there." I said, faking a southern accent. Emma has always complimented my acting skills. "Did ya try the waves?" Tark looked over at me in amusement, but didn't recognize me, which was a relief. We'd done too many missions together – on opposite sides of course – for me to want him to recognize me.

"Not yet." He said, his voice surprisingly soft and sweet for a murdering psychopath. "Have you?" He flashed me a smile of straight white teeth. _How, how, HOW is it possible for evil villains to be that beautiful? _

"Na. Ah prafer the sho. Safer if ya know what ah mean." I said, twisting a lock of my hair in my fingers and looking shyly at him. "Ah bet you're not afraid." Tark laughed.

"I'm not afraid of much." He said. I sat down in a beach chair next to him.

"So what brings you to California? You a local?" I asked casually. Tark made a face.

"I wish. No, I'm here on a – ah, - business trip." He said evasively. I made a mental note of that. "I'm from the Tri-State Area up north." He added.

"Ah'm from New Orleans." I said. "Ah'm here visitin ma cousin in LA." Tark nodded.

"LA. Great place. I was there for a while on my way here." He said. _LA. _I thought.

"So ah was wonderin – " I leaned over and 'accidently' dropped my cell phone. "Have ya eva wondered what it would be like ta – " I dropped the fake accent and continued in my normal British one. "Get tricked into revealing your true evil plans to the authorities by a girl?" Tark's eyes widened and he started to drop the phone he had picked up from where I'd dropped it. Too late. I had already activated the tranq gas in the phone. He fell to the ground unconscious. I looked down at him and noticed that one of his hands was clasped around a pistol and saw a small hole in the back of his neck. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thanks Em." I said. She grinned.

"Hey if you're going to take down the evil villain the least I can do is help." She shrugged.


	16. Separation

**So I left the people in the sewers in possible stand-still mode, and I have my spies sneaking a potentially dangerous – who am I kidding? **_**Extremely **_**dangerous – man into their hotel room via suitcase. If you didn't read this when you first got to this chapter, you need to review, it's a law. Says me.**

Emma's pov

Tark was kinda cramped. I didn't blame him. That was a really awkward position to be in. **(See intro unless you already read it.) **I decided to start off the interrogation easily.

"Do you want to be good cop or bad cop?" I asked Elina. She smiled.

"What am I always?" I sighed.

"Fine, I'll be bad cop." I pouted.

"You know you love it." She teased. I kicked the suitcase across the room and watched it slam into a wall. "Should we take him out for this?" Elina asked. I thought about it.

"Nah, just phase his head through the wall so we can talk to him."

"It's a suitcase!"

"Whatever!"

"Hey, won't that cut off his breathing?" Beka asked. I shrugged.

"We're about to find out." I said.

Ferb's pov

"Guys, can't we just keep moving?" I asked impatiently. The clock was ticking. Only a few more hours and Vanessa would be dead.

"Baljeat's ankle needs to rest." Phineas said, not looking up from where he sat, wrapping the younger boy's ankle. I tapped my foot.

"Hurry up Phineas or that won't be the only thing on Baljeat that's hurt." I said. "And anyway, can't Isabella just do her little spark thing and heal him?" Phineas turned to me.

"No. She's never done this kind of healing before." He said.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Aren't all healings the same?" Isabella shifted uneasily.

"No, not really." She said. "I've only done major healings. Never something in a concentrated area like this." I sighed.

"Phineas, hurry. Tick tock." I tapped an invisible watch on my wrist.

"I'm with him, I like living." Vanessa agreed.

"Chill out Ferb, I'm almost done." Phineas said quietly, ignoring the older girl.

"Maybe you better let me look at it." I said. He seemed to be struggling with the bandage.

"That's okay, I think I got it." He said.

"No really, maybe I can help." I insisted, moving forward and pushing his shoulder gently. He shook me off in sudden irritation.

"I said I got it Ferb! Don't you think I can do anything by myself?" Phineas snapped. I pulled back, surprised.

"I'm just thinking about Baljeat's safety. I'd rather not put him…" I began.

"In the hands of little clueless Phineas? You think I'm going to hurt him? Thanks a lot _bro._" Phineas sneered sarcastically, emphasizing 'bro' harshly.

"I was going to say 'at risk from exposure' but that works too." I shot back angrily. What right did he have to go off on me like that? What had I done? Phineas stood up to glare at me. His eyes were a foot or so below mine, so he wasn't that intimidating.

"You never think I can do anything! Well I've got news for you. I can do anything you can do – and I can do it better." He said. My mouth hardened into a thin line.

"Yeah, then overlook some 'minor detail' and fall and kill yourself!" I said.

"Why don't you think I can do this? Why don't you think I can do anything?" He sounded a little hurt now.

"Because you _can't _Phineas. You can't do anything and if it wasn't for me you'd be dead already. You'd be dead when you tried to build the roller coaster." I told him. I saw the reaction in his eyes, but I didn't take it back.

"That's what you think! I could do it all by myself – I don't need you." Phineas snapped. That stung. _I don't need you. I don't need you. I don't need you. _

"Oh yeah? Well I think you _do _need me and I'm always right." I said.

"No you're not! You're not as great as you think – the only reason you have a life is because I do all the talking for you!" He said. "Maybe – maybe that's why Emma left you." There was a collective gasp in the tunnel. Nobody would have thought perfect little Phineas would say that. Well now they knew that he wasn't perfect. The only one who didn't seem surprised was Liz. I was starting to like her.

"Shut up you little urchin!" It took me a second to realize that the words were coming out of _my _mouth. I was out of control of my own words, all I could do was listen. "_You're _the one who got us all into this in the first place! You lied to me and everyone you know about you little Shadow thing for the entire time we've known you! Then you went and dragged us all into your game because you can't handle it on your own! How do we know that _anything _you've told us is true? Maybe _you _killed your sister!" I paused, and I saw the intense pain on the younger boy's face. And I knew that if I said anything else I could lose him forever. _Please stop, don't say anything else. _"And you know what else? I don't need you. I don't _want _you so why don't you go find the Transistor yourself?" I was shocked that I had said something like that. But I didn't take it back.

"Fine." Phineas' voice was hollow. "I will. And I will get there first." He walked off into the darkness, followed by Isabella, Liz, Josh, and Baljeat. Vanessa, Buford, Ellie, and Nick stayed with me. The last thing I heard was from his mind. _I hate you. _His thoughts said, sharp as three knives piercing through my now-exposed heart. I sighed. The others were looking at me, needing a leader. That was usually Phin-_His _– department. I looked at them.

"Let's go." I said.

3rd person

"That's not good." The two cloaked figures stood on a ledge overlooking the drama that had unfolded below. It was the taller of the two that had spoken. The hood of his robe was down, revealing jet-black hair and piercing green eyes that seemed to see everything at once. He seemed to be about 14. He turned to the second figure, who was staying to the shadows. The boy couldn't even see their face. "What do you want me to do?" He asked. The second figure turned its hood towards the younger group that was heading off towards a dangerous point in the caverns and tunnels that snaked through the guts of the city.

"I need you to keep them alive." The second figure said. Its voice was low and indistinct. "At least until the – well, you know."

"The Transition?" The boy finished. The other nodded. "Aren't you coming? It's not gonna be easy to keep them alive all on my own. You should know how danger-prone they are." The other laughed easily.

"I know. Don't worry, I've designed you so you are basically immortal and indestructible. You can sense danger from at least 20 feet away. And also, you have almost any power that you want – that is also not possessed by anyone in the room at the moment." They said.

"cool." The boy said. "But why aren't you coming again?"

"You know it's against the rules." The other said.

"What's against the rules?" The boy asked. "People go into their own stories all the time. Come on ktag, don't be such a baby." Ktag shrugged.

"The rules about interference. You know, the ones that make black holes appear in your bedroom if you interfere too much in your stories?" The boy nodded.

"Oh. Those rules. But I thought that you couldn't bring other authors into your stories to keep people alive. Aren't we breaking that rule too?" He asked.

"Not really. You're a character. A figment of my imagination. You have only a couple memories of the human world. So basically, we're stretching it." Ktag looked around. "Oh crap I gotta go. Good luck Dystopian." Dystopian nodded and watched as the author disappeared. Then he looked down at the danger before both groups. Approaching them very rapidly.

"Gotta go huh? Really? I thought this was supposed to be a 'just in case' thing. Ktag, you suck." Then he dissolved into shadows and raced off towards the group in the most immediate danger. The group following Phineas Flynn.

**And scene. What did you think? I mean that literally, it's not a rhetorical question. Press the review button right down there. Right there. See it? Hit it! And if you're wondering, Dystopian is irken24 as an oc. And those rules? They only really apply to me. It sucks but yeah. So none of you who drop into your stories spontaneously are in any danger of spontaneously combusting, or getting sucked into a black hole, or – ANYWAY. I'm going to be using Dystopian a lot now, so get used to it. AND irken24? Did you like what I did with your suggestion? But back to the matter at hand…**

**Hit**

**This **

**Button**

**Right**

**Here!**


	17. Shift of Fate

**So I still am not getting as much done on this story as I want to, but that will change as soon as I find some way to harness my current obsession with the Twilight Saga. Any-way. To the sewers!**

Dystopian's pov

Of all the villains ktag has created, Camille Lysn is the most confusing. Not only does she have a last name that defies all reasonable pronunciation, not only is she a girl:

She's a _teenage _girl.

So, in that sense _no one _understands her. But what I really don't get is that she's agent Elina Kim's step-sister, she's only one year older than Ferb, and yet she's in a group of murderous psycho maniacs bent on world domination.

And she likes it.

Added to all her previous confusingness, Camille can change her shape into anything at all, that 'anything at all' usually being nightmare creatures created with the intent to scare grown men into wetting the bed. So when she transforms into something cute and cuddly…well, you get how _that _would be confusing. Which gives her an almost eternal element of surprise.

To everyone, except me.

Which of course meant Phineas and his group were almost certainly doomed.

Isabella's pov

"Phineas?" Ellie called from the behind us. We turned slowly to face her. And gasped.

"Ellie, what happened?" Phineas asked, rushing to her side just as she fell, broken and bloody, into his arms. Liz was by their side in an instant.

"Ellie!" Liz's voice squeaked, dangerously close to hysteria.

"Breathe, just breathe. All of you." I said, my first-aid badge instincts coming to mind at just the right moment. Ellie coughed as Phineas shifted her, gently moving her to support her neck. She threw up blood all over his shirt, but he ignored it, his eyes on me.

"What do we do Izzy?" He asked.

"See what's wrong." I ordered.

"What hurts Ellie?" Phineas asked softly. "Are you in pain?"

"Not as much as you will be." She answered. It clicked in my brain then. I gasped, dropping the first-aid kit I'd been holding.

"Phineas, it's a trap!" I screeched.

"What?" He asked. Just then, Ellie's arm snaked out, wrapping around his neck like it was made of rubber, and rapidly turning green, a color that spread quickly to the rest of her rapidly-changing body. "Camille!" He gasped as she lifted him into the air.

"Who?" Baljeat asked in horror.

"Ca-" Liz began. Then she too was caught up into the air by her neck. Camille was hanging them.

"NO!" I began, but broke off as the rest of us were caught and held up by the octopus-like creature Camille had become.

"Let's play a game." Her child-like voice giggled. "The others never play games with me." I saw Phineas, Josh and Liz hitting her with all they could at the moment. But Camille was strong in this body, and she was transferring all the pain to us.

"Stop." I gasped. "Please, stop." I didn't know who I was talking to. Phineas, Liz, Josh, Camille…maybe all four. I felt blackness coming to me, closing in over my eyes, my body. I was floating, flying. Then…

I was on the ground.

"Wha-" I asked. I gasped for air.

"Ladies first." A boy muttered as he stood over me, staying only long enough to see that I was alive. He ran towards the others at an impossible speed, slashing Camille's arms to the ground with a huge gleaming sword. One by one Liz, Phineas, Baljeat, and Josh fell to the ground gasping, the tentacle-like arms still wrapped around their necks just like –

Just like me.

"Ahh!" I screeched, flinging the arm as far as it would go. But it came back soon enough to reattach to Camille as she resumed a human shape. I blinked in surprise at what I saw. Camille was tan, like she spent all her free time on the beach instead of hunting down little kids to commit random homicides. She was tall, but actually young, not bitter-looking like you'd expect a villain to look. She had sun-bleached brown hair and chocolate brown eyes that could be nice if they weren't burning in hatred right now. And they were focused on our current life-saver, but he didn't even wince. I gulped in anxiety – for him. _If looks could kill. _

"You are in way over your head boy." Camille hissed in dangerously pretty tones.

"Like I haven't heard that one before." The boy laughed, running towards her with the sword held straight out from his body. Camille was already changing, turning herself into a huge, 7-foot-tall monster with claws and teeth and spikes and lots of heads. I shuddered. It was grey, like a dead body. How appealing.

But the boy was not scared.

He ran forward and brought his sword straight up, but Camille was faster. She slashed at his chest, and should have left a hole big enough to drive a truck through. Key words, _should have._ The boy was totally fine. It was like he was made up of…of shadows. He just melded right back together, like nothing had happened.

"What?" Camille's distorted voice exclaimed. The boy grinned and brought the sword down – it was now glowing – in an arc. Camille disintegrated in a blast of light.

"Wow." I said.

"Agreed." Phineas, Liz, and Josh chorused. Baljeat puked his agreement all over the ground.

"Who are you?" Phineas asked, unable to hide the wonder in his voice. The boy lowered his hood. He looked relatively normal, and _young _to be possessing that level of power.

"My name is Dystopian." He said. "You can consider me your guardian shadow-being."

3rd person

"Is this even legal?" The girl asked. "I mean, you have probably added, like, more than 20 ocs already. Don't you think people are getting tired of your fictional charactors?"

"Do I care?" ktag asked.

"No." The girl agreed. "But if you're going to drop people in unexpectedly all the time you better have a really good story to go along with it. You're gonna break the dimensional barrier."

"Yeah, about that…"

"I don't wanna know." The girl sighed. "So I'm guessing that I'm supposed to protect Ferb's group from impending doom? Since Dystopian's already got Phineas and Co. covered."

"You guess right." ktag said. "Good job Amber." Amber grinned and rolled her eyes. Her fiery red streaks sparked as she tested her favorite power. Then she arranged a tornado of fire underneath her for travel and sped off in the direction of Ferb and his group. Ktag watched her go.

"I really need to stop putting my friends in mortal danger." Ktag muttered.


	18. Robotic

**I'm ba-ack! Not that it's a good thing for my characters. Any-way. Here's more of Painful Truth!**

Ferb's pov

"Who are you?" I asked the girl when I could speak again. The girl flipped her red hair over her shoulder and turned to the way she had come. Maybe that's the wrong word. Maybe 'appeared out of thin air' would fit better.

"My name is Amber, but that's not important right now." She said. "What is important is…"

"Making sure none of you get to the Transistor." A mocking voice said. I gulped. Karo.

"Too late to go around." Amber muttered. "Guess we'll have to go right through."

"I don't like the sound of that." I breathed. Then it was too late to talk anymore. Karo held up two of her arms/legs/mechanical limbs and I smelled the now-familiar smell of fire and violence. I heard Buford hiss something I'd never heard him say before behind me and Ellie move over to the side of the pathway. All this happened in under three seconds. After that was a blur.

Missiles shrieked through the air as Karo fired at us from all sides. But the air stayed perfectly clear, clear enough for me to see her whipping around at an almost-impossible speed and switching between weapons like she was trying to decide which one was her favorite. Clear enough for me to see Ellie pressed back against the rock, a look on her face like she was concentrating very hard on something. Clear enough to see Buford dive behind a boulder to avoid being hit by Karo's erratic blasts. Clear enough to see Nick go down with a patch of red spreading rapidly through his shirt.

He fell face down on the cement, his chest heaving frantically, trying to pull in air to his starving lungs. Red blurred my vision. I was insanely mad, and it made me careless. I ran out into the open to the younger boy's fallen body. I turned him over, looking around for someone who could help. I wished fervently that Isabella had stayed with us. Nick's eyes were wild, and I searched his thoughts so he didn't have to use up energy to speak.

_Hurts! _His thoughts screamed. _Pain! Make it stop! _I felt his dying thoughts and wanted revenge. I felt around me to Karo's robotic body. I concentrated with all my might on the parts of the robotic exoskeleton that connected to her spinal cord.

**Destroy. **I thought to them, _commanded _them. **Destroy the girl. **

Nothing happened. Karo laughed.

"You actually thought I wouldn't have a shield on my robot side?" She mocked. I realized too late that she would be able to see every move I made with us out in the open. I should have dragged Nick back behind the other rocks. Oh well, too late now. Karo raised a huge sword-like weapon and sliced it down through the air. Suddenly, a fireball hit her full in the face. I looked in the direction it had come as Karo staggered a few steps backwards. Amber grinned and lit her arms on fire up to the shoulders.

"Let's do this." She said, launching herself into the air. She spun around and hit Karo in the chest, knocking the cyborg to the ground. Karo grabbed Amber with her claw-things and held the girl in the air by her neck. Amber sighed. "You really shouldn't have done that." She said. "It really ticks me off when people try to kill me and my friends." Then her _entire body _burst into flame. Karo laughed.

"Flames will do you no good against my robotic body." Karo said. "It's bulletproof, missile-proof, and fireproof." Amber smiled, and the flames retreated completely. Karo grinned in an evil, triumphant way.

Then Amber exploded.

Literally, exploded. Well, not exactly. She pushed the flames out from her in such a way that it had the effect of a bomb on Karo. And also, the rest of us were pushed to the ground in the shockwave. The area around the two girls was a fiery caldron of heat and burning substances I didn't even want to guess at. I stood up shakily, looking into the fire.

"Amber?" I asked. A figure jogged towards us from within it. Amber ran out to us, unscathed, not burnt to a crisp, and grinning like she just won the lottery.

"Let's do it again!" She yelled in anticipation.

"What about Nick?" Ellie asked. Amber looked down at the boy for the first time. Her expression turned serious immediately. She knelt beside him and felt his chest for a heartbeat. Then she looked at her hand, and a blue light spread across her palm. She turned Nick over and pulled his shirt up so she could see where the knife had gone in. She stuck the hand in the wound and flexed her fingers. Ellie gagged and I'm sure I looked a little green. It's not something I'm ashamed of. I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to puke when someone sticks their hand in an open wound. And, sadly, it's not the first time I've had to see that. Amber pulled her hand out slowly, the wound healing behind her fingertips.

"Cool, I didn't think that was going to work." Amber said. "Apparently the others are too far away to interfere with the 'infinite power' thing." She paused. "Or they're dead."

"How did you do that?" I asked. "What are you?" Amber grinned.

"That, my dear, is classified information." She said in a perfect imitation of my mum.

"Don't pressure the freaky fire girl who just saved my life." Nick said, sitting up. That was big for him. He must really be grateful to Amber to actually talk.

"No pressure Amber." Ellie muttered.

"Wow. That was cool." A British voice said from behind us.

"Sammy!" I said. "What are you doing here?"

"What are _you _doing here?" Sammy Kim asked. "I thought you guys were more outdoorsy people than undergroundy people." I smirked.

"I could say the same about you." I pointed out.

"Well after Mum and Elina accidently killed this guy, we decided you guys might want some help." Beka said, coming up behind the tall blond.

"I thought they just killed people on purpose." I said, confused.

"We do baby." Mum said.

"But this guy choked on a gummy bear. Pathetic." Elina Kim sniffed.

"Oh, well that's okay then." I said. "I thought you guys were losing your touch or something."

"That would never happen, Ferb." Mum said soothingly. "Don't worry, Mummy and her friend will always be around to kill people for you."

"And I thought _I _was weird." Amber laughed.

**Well that was odd. Thank you to my loyal readers after all this time. REVIEW!**


	19. Swamped

**So just to explain my erratic writing patterns a bit, I made the mistake of writing six stories **_**at once. **_**Two here, two on my computer, two in notebooks, and one with my friend – also in a notebook – that is six, right? Let's see – two, four, six, (oh this song is really sad – I'm listening to music XD) where were we? Six? Um, yeah. That. Did I miss one? Cause I did this counting thing a million times last night and now I'm coming up with seven and not six. Okay, Painful Truth, The Sparks, Bloodlust, Ashes, The Vampire Prophecy, Run, No-Name Story – did I forget any? I need you guys' help. So if you have mad counting skills, review and tell me how many stories I'm writing/co-writing. Thanks!**

**P.S I had a plan for this chapter but I'm going to wing it so it might get weird – then again you're used to that by now. XD**

Phineas' pov

"Which way should we go _now_?" Isabella asked. I looked down both paths and squinted into the darkness. Baljeat and Josh were still at the back, but Liz, Izzy, and I were talking about which way would be the best. Because if we took the wrong route, we could end up like Camille. I shuddered involuntarily thinking about it. Dystopian was leaning against the non-wet wall with ease. I wasn't surprised. If we got caught by my dad's army of snipers, he could probably just walk away.

"What do you think?" Liz asked him. He looked at her and then looked at the fork.

"I'm not really supposed to get you to the Transistor. I'm only here to keep you alive for a limited time." He replied, shrugging.

"Baljeat could die if we don't get to the Transistor." I pointed out.

"True." He thought about it for a while. "Okay, if you go right you have to cross a bridge over a crocodile-infested swamp –"

"Hey, let's go left." Josh said in a _duh _voice.

"- but if you go left, you run into a room full of robotically-controlled motion-sensing fully automatic Chinese AK knock-offs."

"Hey, let's not." Liz said to Josh.

Dystopian shrugged. "It's your call." And then he looked at me. Of course he did. The others followed his lead, and I realized that he was saying it was _my _call. Which way should I get my friends killed? Hmm, tough one. Shot to pieces by AKs or ripped to shreds by crocodiles? Decisions, decisions.

"How strong is the bridge?" I asked cautiously.

"Strong enough." Dystopian said, then pursed his lips.

"Let me guess, you're not allowed to help me on this?" I asked. Dystopian shook his head.

"It's not that." He said. "If I told everyone which way to go, they wouldn't listen. Not because it's a bad idea or they don't trust me – because they look up to _you_." The others nodded.

"You're our leader, Phineas." Isabella said. "We follow you. Even when you might be wrong." I looked at the others, each expressing similar expressions of loyalty. I held my head a little higher, and turned to the path on the right.

"Let's go save the world." I said.

Ferb's pov

"Amber, I think you should see this." I said. Amber ran over to me, followed closely by Vanessa – who no one had seen during Karo's attack because she had run into my mom & co. – Sammy, Beka, and Buford. Elina, Mum, Ellie, and Nick stayed back, watching the shadows paranoidly. Then again, I guess you were allowed to be paranoid when you could get killed by hidden snipers at any minute.

"What did you find?" Beka asked. I pointed upward to a dark spot on the wall ahead of us. The girls and Buford followed my finger to the dark spot, which looked suspiciously like an opening.

"Can you reach it?" Vanessa asked Amber. Amber rolled her eyes and lit up her feet like rockets to fly up to the dark spot – which became obvious to be an opening when her fire touched its corners – and peered inside.

"Whoa." She said. She flew back down. "Ferb, others – you are not going to believe what our fearless leader just found."

We all got up to the opening through various helpful bursts of power from our fellow Shadows. I turned one of my mother's guns into a hover device, Mum helped Vanessa, Buford, and Nick to the opening by way of her teleportation. Elina phased Sammy and herself up and Beka turned into a bat and flew up. I looked at Ellie, who was the last one at the bottom. I was about to fly up myself.

_Do you want help? _I asked. Ellie shook her head.

"No, thanks Ferb." She said. "But I can do this myself." And with that, she dissipated into a cloud-figure and floated to the top of the wall.

"How did you do that?" Nick asked, stunned into speech.

"it's a variant of what Elina does." She said. "Except to control _my _molecular density, I have to change shape." Mum looked impressed.

"Nice little army you have here." She said.

_We're not an – _Mum waved away my protest.

"I know, I know." She said. "But just – be careful." She said.

"What do you mean?" Vanessa wondered.

"Nothing. Let's find that machine." She said. "I want another crack at that two-faced ex-husband of my former best friend."

Phineas' pov

"Looks safe enough." I said, looking at the bridge, swaying in the sinister breeze. It was a scene from a horror movie. The bridge was old, wooden, coated in slime and wet. It was at least a fifty foot drop to the bottom of the pit, where there were plenty of crocodiles to kill you just in case the fall and sharp rocks and metal didn't.

"Great. You go first then." Josh shot at me. Izzy punched him not-at-all softly on the arm. I shrugged and checked my telekinesis by hovering five feet in the air, then landed and began to walk along the bridge. It creaked and swayed under my feet, but held. I turned to the others slowly, testing each board.

"Okay, _do not come all at once _but it's safe." I said.

"All at once?" Baljeat asked as they all piled on.

"Oh for gosh's sake!" Dystopian yelled.

"_**AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"**_

**So I am FINALLY writing these stories on a regular – for me okay? – basis again and I feel happy. So make my day and review and I will try to give answers to all your questions and replies to your praise/criticism as soon as I can. REVIEW!**


	20. Sister Dear

**So in this chapter I will probably include a song or something or other. But this is the first time I'm writing for this character on fanfiction, although I've had her in mind almost from the beginning. So I hope you like her even though she won't look like she's going to be important or anything yet.**

New Character's pov

"Daddy?" I called. The call echoed through the hallway eerily, like some horror movie I wasn't allowed to see yet. I sighed. He was never home. He was always at his 'high paying job' while Mama was at work. So I got left alone a lot. Of course, they didn't know that. They thought old Mrs. Garner from across the street was watching me. But I had done a little interfering with phone lines and such and now I had the whole house to myself for the majority of the day.

Until, of course, I started kindergarten in the fall.

I gripped the peanut butter jar in both hands and jumped from the counter, landing lightly on my feet and spinning to sprint out the kitchen door and up the stairs to my bedroom. I grabbed my Oreos from my secret stash in my closet and settled on my bed to watch TV. I only got through half of the theme song when the phone rang.

"_Call from: Karo." _The phone tweeted. I stayed on the bed for a minute. The World Division was Daddy's work. He told me never to answer it because it was really important. But I was more mature than he knew. So I got up and answered the phone. They didn't usually call when Daddy wasn't home.

I answered it anyway.

"Hello?" I said.

"Cassie?" The voice asked in surprise.

"No, this is her daughter, Sera." I said. "Are you calling for Dad?" I made sure not to say 'Daddy'. People usually thought you were a baby when you did that.

"Yes, can you give him a message for me?" Karo or whoever had her phone at the moment asked.

"Sure." I said, struggling to keep the babyish slur from my voice. _Stupid, useless toddler voice! _

"How old are you, Sera?" The sugary-sweet voice asked. Mom had taught me that lying was bad, but there was something about this woman that screamed at me to lie to her.

"Fifteen." I said, trying to sound fifteen.

"Okay, then tell him, 'we are ready, we can…_move _at any time'." Karo said.

"What were you going to say?" I asked.

"What?" She wondered.

"You sounded like you were going to say something else, but then you changed your mind and said 'move' instead." I clarified. Karo was silent, than the line went dead. I looked at the phone in my hand, confused. I bit my lip, knowing something was up. "Well that was weird." I whispered to myself. I heard a door slam downstairs and jerked.

"Daddy?" I asked. There was no answer, so I climbed down the stairs and looked around. "Dad?" I crept along the hall. Another door slammed at the end of the hall, and I straightened up, calmed. The door at the end of the hall was my dad's study, or 'lab' as he called it.

I considered going back upstairs, then remembered the weird message Karo had given me. I shrugged it off and walked down to the study's door. It was almost closed, but creaked open as I approached. There was a desk in the room, with papers strewn across it in a very un-orderly fashion. A leather chair sat behind the desk, which faced the far wall. On the far wall was a large bulletin board with multiple papers and things push-pinned to it. I walked in cautiously, very aware of the law that I was never ever never allowed in this room as long as I lived. There was a picture on the desk, and, as I got closer, I saw that it was a picture of five children. Two of them had triangular heads.

"Weird, isn't it?" A voice called. I whipped around to face the owner of the voice.

"Who are you?" I asked the cloaked newcomer. He was very tall, and dark. In his right hand was a sword taller than me. He looked at me, than at the sword. He slid it into his belt and grinned. His mouth was full of sharp teeth.

"Who am I?" He asked in a silky smooth voice. "Who are _you_?"

"That's easy." I said. "I know who I am." He smirked.

"What's your name, little girl?" He asked.

"M-my mom doesn't like me talking to strangers." I said, clenching my fist behind my back and feeling the warmth spread across it. I hoped I wouldn't have to use my…gift. I wasn't quite used to it yet.

"What about your father?" The shadow-like boy asked.

"He doesn't care." I said. "He doesn't care about anything." My back was to the wall now, my fist in between them.

"Why not, do you suppose?" The boy was thoughtful now, and less threatening. He held out a picture. "Is this your father?" I gasped, snatching the picture from him.

"Who is this girl right there?" I asked, pointing to the woman next to my daddy. "And who are they?" I pointed to the five children – the same five from the other picture I'd seen on the desk.

"The woman is Carter Henele's first wife, Linda Flynn. Those are their children – Ethan, the oldest, the next were twins – Candace and Bruce," He pointed out each of the children as he named them. "And the youngest were the other twins, Phineas and Aria."

"Daddy had another family?" I whispered.

"Yes." The boy said. "But most of them are in a place called Heaven now. Only Linda, Candace, and Phineas are still alive." He sounded sad. I gasped.

"They _died_?" I squeaked. "Did they get sick?" The boy laughed a little.

"No, Sera. There was a fire." He said. "But it wasn't an accident."

"Who killed them?" I snapped. "Who would do such a thing?" The boy handed me a thick file from the desk. I glanced at him warily before sucking the warmth back into my skin. I took the folder and opened it. The same picture that the boy had was in the front, but it was marked up with red pen. There was three X's on it. They were on the three who had gone to Heaven. On the girl who remained, there was a word. It was 'EXPENDABLE'. The woman also had a word on her chest. It was 'LIABILITY'. The boy was circled. There were two words on his chest. The words were 'EMBER' and ' TARGET'.

My mind flashed to the conversation with Karo. She had said they were ready to 'move' now. Daddy was on a business trip, I remembered. Mom had never told me what he did. I had gotten the feeling she didn't know either. Daddy had never mentioned another family. He had never even mentioned where he had lived before he moved to Ashes. Maybe he had done all that because he was hiding something. I'd always suspected as much. He'd always told me too little, and asked me too much. Mostly about if I had any special abilities. There was something about the way he asked that warned me not to tell him the truth about my powers. What if these children hadn't been so careful?

"He's going to kill them." I breathed.

**Okay so I totally blew the whole 'secret identity' thing. But, whatever. What good are secrets anyway? Exept the other characters – minus Dystopian and Amber – don't know about Sera yet so if you figured her out, SHHHHHH! And also, REVIEW! And MERRY CHRISMAS!**


	21. Crocodile Soup

**Hi everyone! Did you all get great presents for Christmas? Hope so! I know I did! But, anyway, you guys didn't look up my story to hear me blabber on about what I got for Christmas, right? And it's about time I told you guys what happened to our little buddies in the crocodile swamp, so here we go again.**

**(And yes, I am hyper.)**

Phineas' pov

The fall was surprisingly short. It didn't even hurt to hit the water, just stung a little.

Yeah, that's not a good thing.

I swam with jerky strokes towards the surface. My head exploded from the water and I coughed, looking around frantically.

"Isabella!" I screamed. "Liz! Josh! Baljeat!" I looked around the churning water for my friends. The churning water. There was no current before we had hit the water. Oh. No. "Anyone!" I screamed. "If you can hear me – swim for shore _as fast as you can!" _I followed my own advice, swimming to my right, only to stop as I came face-to-face with a gigantic croc. "Oh, crap." I squeaked. It opened its mouth and roared, and I uttered a much more colorful series of words and swam, trying to use my telekinesis to propel myself into the air, but I couldn't seem to get a grip on my powers because I was really freaking out.

Something hit me in the head and I was suddenly underneath the water. I tried to claw my way up, but I didn't know which way was up anymore. I opened my mouth to scream as two glowing eyes flashed in front of me, and a huge amount of water rushed in. I was choking and gasping, but all I was getting was water. I was fading out when I felt the teeth bite into my leg.

Isabella's pov

I screamed as we fell, seeing a crocodile right beneath me. I was panicking, yes. But I did have instincts. And those instincts activated my powers and shoved my hands in front of me. I didn't even realize what I was doing until I hit the croc's back. I pumped enough power into the animal to heal the entire US marines of third-degree burns. A small part of my mind was wondering what to do if the thing got stronger, and the other 90% was wondering if I was screaming out loud or in my mind, then just not caring and screaming louder.

The crocodile, however, was shrinking.

A minute after I had hit the two-ton croc's back, I was wrestling with a tiny, itty-bitty _baby _crocodile. I gasped, hanging on to the baby to keep my exhausted body above the water. I looked down at it as it towed me to shore, then curled up against my soaked side. It was actually kind of cute, now that it wasn't trying to eat me alive. I suddenly jerked up, startling the baby and causing a backlash of pain in my head that almost knocked me out – I must have hit the croc harder than I thought – and gasped in shock.

"Homigosh!" I yelped. "I just reversed the aging process!" Not that I had long to comprehend what that meant, because that was when the world exploded.

Liz's pov

Yes, I was panicking. Yes, I was about to die, I'm sure. Yes, I was surrounded by dozens of hungry crocs. But that didn't mean I curled up in a ball screaming 'Don't eat me! Don't eat me!'. Nope, that meant I got really pissed.

"Why! Does! This! Keep! Happening! To! Me!" I screamed, blowing up another croc as it made a move at me. I flew above the frothing, churning water, looking for the others. Okay, Isabella was on one of the metal shores of the swamp with a baby croc. Weird. As usual. What did she have that I didn't? I grimaced, zapping another animal. I was so over him. Wait, where was he? And I mean Phineas, if you guys didn't catch that.

"Phineas?" I called. "Josh? Dystopian? Indian kid?" I looked around the water, desperately hoping to find someone, if only so I wouldn't be alone with the raven-haired beauty queen. I caught a glimpse of red out of the corner of my eye. I turned towards it, hoping against hope that it was Phineas and not the remains of one of my team mates. "What the…" I began. Because it was neither.

It was a girl.

She was taller than all of us – except maybe Dystopian, who I hadn't seen since the bridge collapsed – had light brown or dark blond hair, and green eyes. She was wearing a red bandana that she took off and dipped into the water. Half the crocodiles swarmed towards it and she flipped over them gracefully, diving into the water without so much as a splash.

Without as many crocodiles, I could see better into the water. I could see Josh's icy head, anyway. His body was covered in ice, like a shield against the croc's huge teeth. I dove down through the air towards him, zapping feisty crocs out of my way. I grabbed his arm and towed him up, up, up - out of the danger zone for croc teeth.

"Liz?" He asked groggily, the ice fading in his effort to stay awake.

"Yeah, don't worry, you're safe now." I said soothingly. I looked down and saw the mystery girl appear behind Isabella on the metal bank, her arm hooked around an unconscious-and-bleeding Baljeat. "Four down, two to go." I whispered. Then a huge, fiery, explosion blew out of the area with the most crocs.

"Where's Phin?" Josh yelped in fear.

"I think I know." I said, watching until the flames opened, and a small boy appeared standing at their center.

Carter's pov

"She's in." I said, turning to my team members. Karo, Tark, and Camille nodded in synchronism.

"Are you sure this is the best idea?" Camille asked. "We already know that there's a weird telepathic connection between the blond and your boy there. Do we really want to chance another freakish development?"

"Stephanie is the perfect hook." I told the little girl icily. "They won't ever expect anything."

"Yeah, but her name's not Stephanie." Karo pointed out. "The girl's still in there. And the truth has an annoying habit of getting out." She looked pointedly at me. "And your child freaks are usually unstable."

"If it looks like they're catching on, I'll pull the plug and you all can go wreak havoc on the helpless little children." I said. "If you've forgotten, this is _my _operation. You can all make your own plan some other time."

"What about the anomalies?" Tark, who had not spoken yet, asked.

"No." I said. "We can use the anomalies, and we need Stephanie."

"Aw, Carter's finally developing a sense of fatherly love." Karo mocked. I glared at the cyborg girl darkly.

"I love no one, and no_thing_. The only thing I love is power." I turned back to the cameras and gripped the desktop, my hands shaking. "And even if this fails…we will have more _power _than anyone would ever imagine." My voice shook with the prospect. "The children may stop this from going through, but they will never be able to stop what they will put into play."

**What is Carter talking about? Who is the mystery girl? Who is Stephanie? What plan? Review if you want the answers to these questions! And thanks to 'Oh for the love of Phineas' for their character idea and for giving me the chance to use this character.**


	22. Aliens and Other Anomalies

**And now, an update from your local news center…I – got nothing. We're not very informed on the outside world around here…oh! Hey! I got something! Happy New Year! And…um, the weather is…weathery…and…oh, what? This isn't the news station? It's fanfiction? Oh, good. For a second there I thought I was having one of those lucid nightmares where being lucid is a bad thing because you have no idea what the heck you're supposed to do…anyway. Why don't we get to the stuff you really come here for…more author's notes! Just kidding. Except for the high lord of terra who actually likes my author's notes. And…okay! Okay! I'm going! I'm going!**

Ferb's pov

"What do we do?" Sammy wondered, she was watching the small red blip on the screen get bigger and less blip-ish. I made a face and led the way towards the back of the cave.

"We've got our resident alien here, don't we?" Beka gestured to Amber, who was studying the cave drawings. "And my mum and your older sister want the alien to bring the other alien in so we can learn their alien ways."

"If you say alien one more time, you will look in a mirror and think your face is an alien." Amber growled. I sighed.

_Guys, can we just focus on the problem at hand? _I asked.

"We are. We're making fun of the problem at hand." Beka said. "It's what we do."

"Will everyone shut up?" Mum suggested calmly. We shut up. "Thank you." She sighed. "Amber, what do you purpose we do?" Amber turned her head from the wall to look at my mum and smiled quickly.

"My idea is we lure the alien and/or supernatural/paranormal being into the cave, then you keep him/her/it busy while I stun them." She said. I frowned.

_And how is this going to work again? _I asked. _And what do you mean by _lure _them down here into the underworld? _Amber made a face.

"Weeeellll." She said slowly. "Let's just say I'm pretty sure the alien creature feeds on energy. I picked up a couple things from the walls…it only shows up on earth once in a long time. And only when there are a large amount of powerful shadows and/or anomalies in one place at a time." She smiled apologetically. "So, uh, sorry about that." I rolled my eyes.

_Let's just do this. _I said. _Wait, there's more than one anomaly?_

Phineas' pov

I strained to reel my powers in as they raged uncontrollably through my anger. The problem with being an Ember is that you can snap and explode at any moment. Of course, the 'explode' part was usually metaphorical. And of course I would be the one who would actually explode. I found myself worrying that Isabella would get hurt…

"Phineas! Phineas!" A voice called. Then a hand was grabbing at my shoulder. "Phineas, you're going to melt the support system that runs underneath the city! Power down, power down _now_." I felt my anger flare – literally – at the girl who tried _so hard _to get on my to-do-away-with list.

"Leave me _alone_!" I roared. "Back off Liz!"

"Phineas, listen to me. If you ever wanted to listen to what I have to say I need you to listen right now." I bit my lip and opened my eyes, seeing for the first time what damage I was doing. The ceiling was _bending _around my flames, and the support beams that I guessed also went to the city were bending away, creaking, melting. They were going to fall if any more pressure was applied.

"I'm listening." I said stiffly.

"Everyone is in danger." Liz said. "Isabella, Ferb, me, you, Josh, Dystopian – wherever he is – Baljeat, the other kids…everyone. The entire city of Danville. The entire _world. _And not just from you and your fiery temper. You. Need. To help us. So we can save the ungrateful human population of the planet, and the ungrateful shadow population after that." I sighed and felt the flames retreat. Liz and I floated over to the metal bank, where I fell to my knees, breathing heavily.

"How did you do that?" Isabella asked Liz, rubbing my shoulder gently. "I was as far away as possible and I thought I was going to burn to death."

"Maybe I'm just hotter than you." Liz suggested, her mocking tone evident to even me, the oblivious one – yes I know what people say, I'm not deaf.

"Well, if you're all alive and everything…why don't we get down to business? We _do _have a world to save, after all." A new girl's voice said, I looked up, confused.

"Hey…who are you?" I asked. The girl smirked, tossing a lock of either light brown or dark blond hair from in front of her eyes.

"Call me S." She said. I nodded.

"Where did you come from?" I asked. S shrugged.

"I don't exactly remember which direction it was…" She said, shrugging apologetically. "But I ran away from Carter. I didn't agree with what he was doing, so I left. I decided to help you to get back at him."

"Okay." I said, getting up slowly. "Is everyone okay?" Isabella nodded – why the heck was she holding a baby crocodile? – and Baljeat stepped closer to her, rubbing his ankle. He kept glancing at S nervously, suspiciously. Liz was just watching me, telling me in her thoughts not to blow up at anyone for a while and secretly hoping I would so she could put me down 'for my own good'. Josh was photographing the whole scene with the camera he held in his hands and the ones he had installed in his eyes. Sometimes I did not understand that kid. I recounted everyone and bit my lip, searching the water, hoping that I would and hoping would not see my friend there.

"Where's Dystopian?" I asked. They all looked at each other.

"We haven't seen him since the bridge collapsed." Josh told me.

"I think he ditched us." Liz said.

"That's your first guess to _every _disappearance." I pointed out.

"I've had experience." She said. "Besides, you'd jump to that conclusion too if you were the one who had to suffer from the disappearance instead of the disappearee." The last sentence was loaded with scorn. I bristled.

"We didn't have a _choice_." I seethed. "You would've done the same thing."

"I don't think so." She said. "I would've at least left him an _explanation _instead of leaving him to search the world futilely while I was off who-knows-where building roller coasters!"

"That didn't happen right away! And he deserved it!" I snapped angrily. "And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you _wouldn't have _done the same thing. Maybe you would've just led him on a wild goose chase around the globe while the rest of your family suffers from the fear that he'll trace your letters and find them. Because you don't care how the others feel, do you?"

"You don't know me." Liz said, getting in my face. "You don't know _anything _about me."

"No, I know _everything _about you." I said.

"Okay, okay, guys. Chill out, come on, do we really want to die right now?" Dystopian said, stepping in between us.

"Where have you _been_?" Liz asked.

"Do l detect relief in your voice? Did you miss him?" I asked cruelly.

"Shut up pointy." She snapped. Dystopian laughed.

"You two have issues, don't you?" He asked. We nodded simultaneously. "And anyway, I just left to give someone a few tips on what to do with her day."

"What?" Isabella asked.

"Hi." A small voice said shyly. We all turned to see a tiny little girl about five or six years old. She had red-brown hair and deep navy blue eyes. Her nose had a subtle point to it, and her skin tone was a creamy tan.

"Who's this?" Josh asked. "Besides a little girl who looks like she could be Phin and Liz's kid."

"What?" Liz and I chorused in horror at the very idea.

"Watch your language." Baljeat joked.

"I'm Sarah Henele. No, S-E-R-A." She said. "I'm your half-sister, Phineas." I blinked.

"I have a half-sister?" I asked. "When was Carter planning on telling me this?"

"Told you running off was a bad thing." Liz said innocently. I punched her in the gut and went back to staring blankly at Sera.

"Sera's a shadow too." Dystopian told us. "She wants to help. She had no idea what her dad was up to."

"Can I please? I don't want the humans to get hurt." She said quietly. I smiled at her, feeling an odd sense of love and responsibility I'd only ever felt once before in my life…and barely remembered.

"Of course you can help." I said. "But you have to stay close to me so I can keep you safe." Liz snorted.

"Maybe she should stand by new-girl S or goody-two-shoes Isabella if she wants to be safe." She contradicted meanly. But Sera walked up and hugged me around the legs.

"Okay. I'll stay by you, Phinsy." She said. I stiffened, feeling unexpected tears spring to my eyes at the sound of the familiar nickname. I hugged her back awkwardly.

"come on, we should go." I said. Dystopian nodded, then looked at S.

"Stephanie?" He asked in surprise.

"Dystopian." S – Stephanie? – sounded surprised. "I didn't recognize you at first. You haven't changed a bit. Immortality does look good on you." Dystopian grinned.

"Thanks Steph. How's Beovulph?" He asked.

"Okay, now I'm _really _confused." I muttered. But the two weren't listening to me anymore.

"I actually haven't seen him in a while." 'Stephanie' said regretfully. "When you didn't come back, Beovulph got worried and followed you. He never came back." Isabella put a hand on the girl's shoulder, which she shook off. "We should go." Stephanie said, changing the subject abruptly.

"Sure, but I want to know what you've been doing for the past two years." Dystopian said. "The last time I saw you, you were only ten."

"Steph's our age?" Liz was surprised.

"Your age." Josh said.

"Whatever."

"Yes, she is." Dystopian said. "And she's right. If we're ever gonna stop your dad, we need to move."

"Right." I said. "Let's go."

Dystopian's pov

I couldn't believe it. After two years, I'd finally been reunited with Stephanie…but there was something about her, something different. It was as if she'd been a different person before than she was now. But how could that be? It was impossible. And I could trust Steph. I knew I could. We had trusted each other for ten years when we couldn't trust anyone else. I wished Beovulph was here. Then it would be a real reason to celebrate. I had partnered with Amber since then…I hoped I would get to introduce them.

"Dystopian?" Phineas stood at my side, a confused look on his face.

"What's wrong?" I asked. There was some sort of sucking noise coming from around the rock…I gasped and pulled the boy with me, slamming both of us into the metal wall. "Get down!" I yelled. Sera, Steph, Liz, Josh, and Isabella hit the dirt as a laser gouged a hole in the ground where Phineas and I had just been standing.

"What was that?" Phineas yelled.

"Shhh!" I clamped a hand over his mouth. Whatever had shot that laser, it wasn't done yet.

"Ah!" Liz jumped back as another laser almost hit her. She grabbed Sera and dragged her back so they were pressed up against the other wall. Josh froze his body in an armor type of ice and scrambled over to us, taking pictures the whole time.

"Seriously, Josh?" Phineas asked, annoyed.

Isabella and Steph were at the center of the path, scrambling and diving to avoid being hit. Isabella ducked and hit into Steph. I groaned. That was not good. Steph was known for her temper.

"Watch where you're going!" Steph pushed Isabella – right into the path of a laser. The light came down on the little girl, but never hit. Liz had jumped in front of her.

"Get out of the way, Pinky!" Liz groaned. Isabella scrambled out of the way, and Liz dragged her to her feet and pushed her towards us. "Everyone get over there! I'll absorb the lasers – ahh!" Liz fell to the ground, clutching her chest.

"Liz!" Phineas cried. Blood spread up Liz's shirt and she moaned, unable to activate her powers and fly over to us, to safety. Sera ran over and shook her frantically.

"Lizzie! Lizzie! Get up!" She yelled.

"Sera, get out of there!" Isabella yelled. Steph was beside her, and smiled meanly.

"Why don't you go get her?" She asked, pushing Isabella over to the other two girls.

"Oh for crying out loud!" Phineas shot over to them and put up a force field before they could get hit again. I looked over to the other side of the rock. Someone was shooting at us…no, make that a whole group of people armed with not only lasers, but AKs and plasma blasters.

"I have to do everything." I muttered, decomposing into shadows and slithering out into the midst of the group. I recomposed behind them and raised my sword. "Hey." I said to the first guy I saw. "Pick on someone your own size." Then I killed him.

"Hey! There's another one!" Someone yelled. I swung my sword in the air and brought it down, the resulting shock wave knocking half of the bicep brigade on their oversized butts. Then I fought off the others who converged on me with random martial arts moves I wasn't exactly sure I remembered learning. People shot at me, but my sword was faster, knocking off half the hits before they even knew what they were aiming at. Then I felt the end of a gun digging into my neck.

"Don't move, shadow-boy." A man's gruff voice said. I groaned. I could tell from the structure of the gun it was a plasma blaster. Plasma is the only thing that can kill me when I'm in my human form – and _only _when I'm in my human form. I was going through my options, trying to decide which one _wouldn't _end up getting me killed, when the man was suddenly gone, and a familiar voice was in my ear.

"Let's go, Dystopian." Beovulph said. I grinned and put my hood up again, decomposing and reaching my shadows to the limits of the floor. Then all of me slithered up the walls to the ceiling, covering all the places light could possibly get in. In the pitch blackness, the only light came from the AKs and Desert Eagles firing blindly into the dark. After about ten minutes, I heard a voice laugh and call out for the lights to go back on. I retreated and slithered down to the ground, recomposing myself at the side of my 17-year-old immortal friend. I looked around, impressed.

"you sure haven't lost your touch." I commented.

"I know." Beovulph said. Phineas, Isabella, Sera, Josh, and Liz approached with caution. After all, this guy had just taken out an entire task force of a dangerous terrorist group single-handedly. Well, not quite. He did have my help.

"Hello." Phineas said. "I'm Phineas. You're a friend of Dystopian?" Beovulph nodded, but I could see that the kids still weren't at ease with him yet. I could kind of see where they were coming from – what with the huge sword, body armor, Desert eagle and handheld pistol at his side, and gigantic cape.

"I'm Isabella." Isabella said shyly. "Thanks for, uh, saving me – us." Phineas' eyes narrowed behind her back, just slightly. Beovulph smiled warmly and winked at her.

"you're worth saving." He said. Isabella giggled and blushed and Phineas' mouth clenched in what I guessed was _jealousy…_I cleared my throat loudly.

"I guess we should go…are we all okay?" I asked.

"I think so…" Isabella said. "Wait, where's Baljeat?" We all looked around.

"That's weird, I could've sworn he was here…" Josh muttered. "He was right behind me the whole time. I didn't notice where he went during the fight."

"Other than that, we're all here." Phineas said. "Except _Steph_. She's still behind that rock." And then he said something that sounded like 'which should fall on her', but I must have heard wrong.

"Steph?" Beovulph asked, surprised. "She's here?"

"Yeah." Steph came out, smiling softly. "Good to see you again, Beovulph." He smiled.

"I should say so…what was all this about anyway?" He asked.

"We're trying to stop Carter and the World Division from killing off the human race." I informed him. "They have something called the Transistor under the city, and Phineas and Ferb are going to try and shut it off." Beovulph looked around, confused.

"Where's Ferb?" He asked.

"We had a little…_disagreement._" Phineas said. I noticed that Phineas' attitude seemed to be worsening the more time we spent with my friend. Not that I cared. Phineas wasn't first priority anymore.

"guys? Tick tock. Let's go." I said, leading the way out of the cavern. Beovulph and I were in front, as of our legs being longer. Beovulph looked over at Steph and Liz, deep in conversation, while Isabella was with Phineas, not-so-subtly excluded from the conversation between the other two girls.

"Are you sure we can trust Steph?" He asked conspiratively. I looked at him, shocked.

"You think we can't trust Stephanie? We've known her since she was two years old, we know her real name, we know everything there is to know about her!" I argued quietly.

"Everything there is to know?" Beovulph stared at me solemnly. "Or everything you want there to be to know?" I didn't have an answer to that.

**Oh my gosh it took me SO LONG to write this chapter so you guys HAD BETTER appreciate this! And for those of you who don't know, Stephanie is Oh For The Love of Phineas, Dystopian is irken24, Amber is PhinbellaFan13, and Beovulph is the high lord of terra. Oh, and Emma Fletcher is wonder'sgirl98, Elina Kim is AgentEK, and Sammy is…well based off one of my friends. And you will see this again at the end which is not coming soon…anyway I hope I'm doing a good job with you guys' characters and do not sue me because I gave you credit RIGHT HERE…and for the love of Pete REVIEW this incredibly long chapter which took me forever to write because I was so busy this week!**


	23. Stealth Bomber

**Hey everyone! I am really tired and brain dead right now and I just have to do something I actually enjoy so I won't turn into a zombie and start eating people's brains…any-way. For those of you who care, this chapter might seem kinda messed up or something cause I might be scrambling (watch out for spelling errors – brain dead, remember?) and I'm sorry I haven't been doing more with Ferb's gang, but I had to do a lot with Phineas' group because they just got a lot more characters. Let's see, I'm just gonna do a quick head count here, so hold tight or skip to the chapter if you think I'm boring. Ferb's group – Ferb (duh), Vanessa (duh), Ellie, Nick, Beka, Sammy, Emma, Elina, Amber, Buford (did I miss anyone?). Total: 10. Phineas' group – Phineas (duh), Isabella (duh), Liz (no idea), Josh, Baljeat, Dystopian, Beovulph, Stephanie. Total: 8. Wow, I actually have **_**less **_**in Phineas' group. That's a surprise. Anyway, time to write more and stop boring my loyal author's-note-readers with my crap.**

The blood stained the cockpit of the small interstellar spacecraft. The small boy piloting the craft looked back once again and wrinkled his nose. His companion didn't seem to be bothered by the smell, which made the smaller boy all the more offended by it. He turned to his companion with a look of disgust.

"That wasn't a very clean kill." The younger boy said disdainfully. "And we didn't get anything out of him, anyway. Stupid alien. It was good practice, though." The older boy nodded thoughtfully.

"That was what our uncle told us though." He said. "Messy kill, easier for the suckers to trace." He looked around. "Do you know where we put…"

"Behind the victim, but I am _not _going over there." The younger boy said, looking sick from the thought. "And he's not my uncle – he's my dad." The larger of the two rolled his eyes.

"Whatever. You have no proof to that." He said.

"Yes, actually, I do. And for your information – " The younger began. Just then, a small blip appeared on the screen.

"What's that?" The older asked.

"It's one of the anomalies, you idiot." His companion said harshly. "The one _DAD _told us to take out."

"The fire-child." The other nodded. "Easy enough."

"Not exactly." The small one countered. "Her name is Amber. Formerly Amber Carlson, daughter of the nuclear physicists Nickolas and Elaine Carlson. She was at the nuclear power plant her parents worked at on July 9th, when she was 15 years old. The plant was destroyed on that day in a horrible accident, and everyone was killed. Or so they thought."

"Everyone except her." The older theorized.

"Correct. Amber was saved by a certain Dystopian, last name unknown." The younger replied. The other stiffened.

"The immortal?" He asked in disbelief.

"Yes. Amber's aging process was slowed. She lives ten years for every normal year. And she developed powerful abilities." The older whistled in appreciation.

"too bad she won't get to live out her extended life, eh, brother?" He joked gleefully.

"Very." The younger smiled evilly. "Get ready, we're almost there."

Amber's pov

I watched the top of the cavern from my position in the cave we had discovered. The others stood down below, looking for all the world like a group of soldiers with the various guns and such they MI6 agents had brought as 'just-in-case' items. I glanced at the blood again, and noticed something strange. It had a faint, orange-ish hue in the light from my angle. And a slightly luminescent glow. I studied it, eyes narrowed. I heard a blast from outside and looked up to see a ship hurtle down towards my friends. As soon as I saw it, three things clicked at once.

light from my angle. And a slightly luminescent glow. I studied it, eyes narrowed. I heard a blast from outside and looked up to see a ship hurtle down towards my friends. As soon as I saw it, three things clicked at once.

light from my angle. And a slightly luminescent glow. I studied it, eyes narrowed. I heard a blast from outside and looked up to see a ship hurtle down towards my friends. As soon as I saw it, three things clicked at once.

light from my angle. And a slightly luminescent glow. I studied it, eyes narrowed. I heard a blast from outside and looked up to see a ship hurtle down towards my friends. As soon as I saw it, three things clicked at once.

light from my angle. And a slightly luminescent glow. I studied it, eyes narrowed. I heard a blast from outside and looked up to see a ship hurtle down towards my friends. As soon as I saw it, three things clicked at once.

It was alien blood, but it was not another alien, much less the one I had believed it was, that had killed it. Or been it.

The killer was not an identified threat to my friends.

That was not their ship. That was a bomb.

"Lock out!" I screamed, diving down towards them. I reached them almost the same time the bomb did.

"Amber, what's wrong?" Beka asked anxiously. I didn't have time to explain, just threw up a fire shield. The explosion rocked us, and the ground. And the city above. If we didn't stop the World Division soon, people would start to think Danville was built on a fault line. The explosion would've shaken any building, and shattered any shield, deflector, or force field. But not mine. I stood strong until the explosion was over.

"Oh, I see now." Beka said, gasping. The others stared at me with shocked and confused expressions.

"Amber…" Emma began. I held up a hand and everyone was silent.

I let down my shield and examined the surrounding area. There was no sign of life, or no more than there had been before the bomb. Maybe less. The others were organized, if you could call it organized, in a loose circle. Buford and Sammy stood close to the cliff face where we'd come. Ellie and Nick were the closest to the burning remains of the bomb. They looked for all the world like emotionless zombies, but I wasn't worried. I'd had firsthand experience with surviving bombings. Emma and Elina stood facing the way we'd come to get here, glaring at the tunnel as if they were daring someone to come at us just so they could shoot them with the giant AK-47s they held. Ferb and Beka were watching me as I evaluated, and I wondered briefly if Ferb was reading my mind. Vanessa was…I stopped.

"Where's Vanessa?" I asked suddenly. Everyone looked around.

"She was just here." Ferb muttered in disbelief. "you don't think…"

"No." I said. "She couldn't have been outside my shield. I'm very precise with these things. She wasn't here. Did anyone notice when she first left?"

"No, I don't think so." Sammy said, looking around again, confused.

"Amber, dear?" Emma asked politely.

"yes?" I replied, still puzzling over where Vanessa might have gone.

"Have you ever known it to be this quiet after one bomb has been dropped?" She was speaking in a conversational tone, as if we were discussing the weather. We froze, and the silence that followed allowed us all to hear the air whistling past something high above us that was coming closer…closer…closer…

My shield was up in an instant, but I wasn't as prepared, the first shock having weakened my shield by a degree or two. This time, I had to brace myself and grit my teeth to withstand the assault. I groaned, but held. I wondered how many bombs Carter had authorized to his child soldiers. It was sick the way he used them like that.

_Who's doing this? _Ferb asked, all business.

"The World Division's child soldiers." I murmured, opening a window in the top of my shield to see if any more bombs were approaching. "Basically junior terrorists. Some have…connections…that further them in rank."

"I propose we move, regroup, than take 'em out." Elina suggested. For everything her tone suggested, she could've been saying 'let's have tea'. I smirked.

"What do you think, Ferb-o?" I asked. Ferb made a face.

_I think that would be a good idea, as I do not relish getting shot at or bombed every two minutes. _

"Couldn't have said it better myself." I approved. We moved.

Vanessa's pov

I moaned and sat up, looking around the dark room.

"Ferb?" I asked cautiously. Someone – or some_thing _– scuttled across the dark room and behind me. I gasped and backed away. "Ferb, this isn't funny." The someone laughed with dark amusement.

"I'm not Ferb." She said. Suddenly, wind swirled around me and I fell forward, onto my hands and knees, gasping for breath. The whirlwind I was stuck in was sucking away all the oxygen. I gasped, my lungs begging for air. I fell forward on my forearms, then I was on my stomach. I turned over and curled into a ball, but nothing helped. I was on the verge of blacking out. The girl laughed. Suddenly, her voice was in my ear, mockingly.

"Just say 'Mercy'." She laughed. I held out for another half-minute, but the pain grew so horrible –

"Mercy." I whispered.

"What was that?"

"_Mercy!"_

The wind was gone, I could breathe. I gasped in air to my starving lungs, my brain in a fog. I pushed myself onto my knees, and realized I was kneeling at the feet of a smallish girl with long, straight jet-black hair and piercing, mocking green eyes. She smiled and knelt down to my level.

"That's my name." She said. "Let's go, Vanessa." The last thing I saw was Mercy's laughing, evil, serpent's eyes.

Camille's pov

The kids around me were starving. But they did what we told them to do, because as far as they knew, we were their only hope. If it hadn't been for Carter, who had first seen my potential, I would still be with them. I was much younger than the rest of the High Command.

"What did you bring us today, Camille?" A boy about my height asked. I opened the bag to reveal three large pizzas.

"Epic." The girl to my right commented eagerly. "Let's do this."

"Carter needs a favor." I said.

"What does the big man want now?" The boy asked, digging in.

"He wants you to guard the Transistor. He thinks Karo's goons might not be enough." I said dismissively. I knew the number one thing that would get the kids to do what Carter wanted – tell them they couldn't do it. But I wouldn't use that. They wouldn't take it from one of their own. "Hey, save some for your teammates." I snapped at the boy. His name was Flare. "And Mercy, can you go pick off another one? Carter doesn't like the competition having large groups."

"No problem." Mercy waved a hand. "After I eat."

"Go ahead." I said. "How're the kids doing?"

"He's Indian." Flare said. "And he doesn't like it that I'm a lot stronger than he is. He's scared silly. His name is Baljeat or something."

"And the girl? Get this, Vanessa _Doofinshmirtz._" Mercy laughed. "Looks like Carter might get the deal he wanted out of that low-life Dr. Heinz-the-loser after all." I smirked.

"Good work. Very good work." I said. "Carter will be glad to hear it. After TNT gets back, tell them about the new plan, have them eat, then you guys can decide what to do. But be at the Transistor by three am."

"Can we ask them to do another bomb run?" Mercy asked. "I get victims better when people panic."

"Whatever." I said. "But don't be late. Or the others won't be happy. The Master won't be thrilled either." We all shuddered at that prospect. Flare and Mercy nodded.

"Don't worry." Flare said. "We'll be there."

**Well I was going to try to make this longer, but there's only so much I can do. And I like to keep my chapters relatively short, to make it easier on you guys. But long chapters make me feel good about myself…anyway, so do reviews, so REVIEW!**


	24. Enter Destiny's Children

**And I'm about to add in another complication…oh wait I already did that. You guys just don't know who it is yet. Most of you guys. Sheesh do I even need to **_**try**_** to keep secrets? Anyway, I'm gonna gather everyone around for the big huge battle scene, so get popcorn. Haha, jk it's gonna be just a little longer. I'm sorry that was a terrible joke, hope none of you died.**

Ferb's pov

We raced down the first corridor we saw. Mum and Elina were at the back by choice, guarding us with AKs and what looked like something that should be illegal. Beka and Sammy ran beside me in the front, asking over and over where we were going and if they would get to shoot someone there. Buford and Ellie were in the middle, and Nick was behind them, looking exhausted. I took into account he lived in an apartment in the middle of the city, didn't get outside much, and therefore wasn't used to this much running. Amber was…

I stopped. _Where's Amber?_

Amber's pov

The ship was right above me, and I could see the dark windshield that protected the identities of my pursuers. Of course, I knew it had to be some of the kids who worked 'under' Camille in the World Division – what did they call themselves? – oh yeah, Destiny's Children. For some odd reason. I braced myself as the guns went up. But I knew something they didn't. The dark shield came up to reveal the two faces of kids who were getting seriously annoying.

The guns fired and I flicked two equally-huge fireballs into them. They exploded, the explosion knocking out the rear engines. I smirked and shot two more fireballs at the front engines. They only had the two emergency engines left, and that wasn't enough given the weight of the ammo they were still carrying plus the corpse of the alien life form that had obviously been working for the UMA (Universal Military Alliance) just like me and Dystopian. Any-way. They crashed. Just in time for Ferb and the others to show up and thank me for saving their butts once again.

Ferb's pov

_We only have three hours left, we need to get to the Transistor, _NOW. I said.

"What's so bad about three hours?" Buford wanted to know.

_Because whenever something hits the three hour point, the good guys only stop it by one second or don't stop it at all. Bad guys will be more ready the closer we get to detonation. _I told him.

"Criminal behavior for dummies." Beka shrugged.

"You callin' me dumb?" Buford threatened.

"You do know what 'Van Stomm' means, don't you?" Beka asked, her nose wrinkled. Sammy crossed her arms.

"That means yes, or do I have to translate it to Neanderthal for you?" She asked. Buford leaned over to me.

"What's a Neanderthal?" He asked.

"It's a compliment." I assured him in a stage whisper. "Now let's go before–" Black-clad men came in from all directions standing on a ledge we must have overlooked. And two boys were coming up from the ravine. The ones who had shot at us. My eyes almost bulged out of my head when I saw who it was.

"Thaddeus? Thor?" I gasped.

"No offense, bro, but you hang out with the _worst _crowds." Beka told me.

"No, I beat them at something when we were ten." I assured her. "We're not friends."

"Very much so." Thaddeus said, aiming his bazooka at us.

Mercy's pov

I looked at the kids we'd picked up. The boy was kind of…scrawny. And the girl was very tall. I squatted and looked into the scrawny kid's eyes.

"It's Baljeat right?" I asked gently, using my talking-to-innocents voice.

"Yes." He replied.

"Baljeat, do you like living?" I asked. His eyes bulged. "Answer the question." I said, all traces of friendliness gone.

"Y-yes." He stammered.

"And if I told you you could stay alive by doing what I said, would you do it?" His eyes were big and scared. I sighed. "Just tell me and we can all be happy." I said.

"It depends on what you wanted me to do." He whimpered. I glared.

"If you just had to answer a question?" I revised. _If he says no, I will hit him so hard…_

"What question?" He asked. I groaned inwardly because I didn't get to hit him.

"Do you know someone named Phineas Flynn?" I asked.

"Yes."

"And is he here?"

"That is two questions." I punched him hard in the neck and he slumped over. I grimaced.

"Oops. I broke him." I said.

"What do you want with Flynn?" I turned to Vanessa, who had spoken.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"That depends on what you want to know." She said. "Look, I know you guys work for Flynn's dad and I know you kidnapped me to force my dad to let you use his building for some sort of evil invention or whatever. And I'm just a pawn either way, so I might as well make myself useful."

"Why are you here if you don't care what happens to the pointy-headed kid?" I asked her.

"Let's just say he's not where my loyalties lie." She rubbed her wrists. "I might be willing to deal if you can do some things for me." I grinned.

"I can do that." I said. "And I'll do you one better." She raised an eyebrow. "Join us, and I'll make sure no 'stray bullet' hits the Fletcher kid." Vanessa laughed.

"You don't have to bribe me. Make sure nothing happens to Ferb, and I'll join you of my own free will."

"Even if we're the bad guys?" I asked. Vanessa laughed again.

"You could be the Nazis for all I care. My home situation is getting out of control, I was looking for a new place to crash other than my best friend's couch." I smirked.

"Know the feeling." I unlocked her handcuffs and beckoned her after me. "Come on." I said. "I'll show you what we're up to."

**Okay so that chapter was kinda choppy and messed up but whatever. Sorry it took so long AGAIN, I'm getting really tired of that. I'll try to update sooner. REVIEW!**


	25. Target Isabella

**Okay back to two in a row. I feel better now. Ahhhhhh….**

**And that's all I have to say for now, except you all must read Siblings and Superpowers by the high lord of terra or you will miss out BIG TIME! That was fourteen or so exclamation points! That means I was totally serious! (okay I'm never serious, but I MEANT IT!)**

Liz's pov

"What was that about?" I asked Steph in a low voice. She looked at me, faking confused.

"What was what?" She asked.

"When we were getting shot at, duh. I'm not stupid. You were really trying to get Isabella killed." I clarified.

"Of course I was. I hate her." She said, shrugging.

"Why?" I asked. "Not that I don't approve, but why?"

"I don't know. I don't like how close she seems to be to Phineas. And I don't like her attitude. It seems like she's kind of…trying something. She seems like she's trying to control us or something. Like she thinks she's better than us." Steph shrugged again and smiled weakly. "Weird, huh?"

"No, it looks like that to me too." I said. "Plus she's flirting with my ex in front of my face almost purposely. So I'm totally okay with getting rid of her." I was alittle surprised at the words that had come from my mouth. '_I'm totally okay with getting rid of her'? Where did _that _come from?_ Steph grinned maliciously and I almost gulped, but managed to keep my face in a relatively neutral expression.

"Good." She said. "I could use some help."

"What are you going to do?" I asked, lowering my voice and glancing over at pinky, who was standing over by Phineas.

"What are _we _going to do." Steph corrected. "And we are going to make it look like an accident." _Oh no, what have I gotten myself into? _I thought.

"Cool." I said.

Beovulph's pov

"They're talking about her, aren't they?" I asked into my earpiece.

"Ya think?" ktag retorted.

"Why are you making my job so difficult? I can't kill Liz or Steph without having to explain everything." I sighed.

"Don't worry. And it makes for good plot development." ktag said. "Anyway I need you to keep an eye out for a certain Mercy Tear." I frowned.

"Where have I heard that name before?" I asked.

"She's one of the original members of the group Destiny's Children." ktag told me. I nodded, knowing I would be seen.

"Oh, so she works for Carter." I said.

"No, she works for Camille." ktag corrected. My eyebrows furrowed, confused.

"Who works for Carter." I said slowly.

"At the moment."

"Ah."

"Now you should get back to the group. Talking to yourself makes you look weird." ktag said.

**And now I have made Isabella a target for not only the baddies but her own team. Aren't I so nice?**


	26. Fight For Your Lives

**And here we go again, of course I have to put in another fight scene before the final battle – and here's my chance to take care of all the unnecessary characters! Tell me if I take care of any of your favorites and I will give them a creepy ghost scene.**

Ferb's pov

I clenched my fists as I did a quick calculation of the chances of us getting out of this alive. I had to admit, it did not look good. I glanced at the guns Thaddeus and Thor held, feeling the mechanics inside of them. I nodded slightly. I could do that. I cocked my head slightly to see my friends.

_Get ready to run, _I told them, _because everything from here on out is going to be total chaos._

_What do you mean by that? _Amber asked. I connected to the huge gun in Thor's hands and began to change it.

3rd person

The robot stood up on two huge mechanic legs. Thor's grasp on it was broken by one off-hand jerk. The one huge gun had transformed into a ten-foot-tall robot with multiple strange and dangerous weapons on it. Thaddeus and Thor took a couple steps backwards, and Thaddeus began shooting at it with his own weapon. The robot made an angry sound and swept a hand backwards towards the boys. Thaddeus jumped back, a red vein pulsing in his forehead. His expression was one of menace and fury. He pointed a finger towards the group pressed against the cave wall under protection of the robot.

"_Kill them!_" He roared. Eighty men raised a mix of AK-47s, laser guns, and disintegrators towards Ferb's group.

Ellie's pov

Smoke filled the air as eighty triggers were pulled in our general direction. Nick pushed me to the ground as – was that a torpedo? How badly did they want to kill us? – sailed over our heads and exploded into the wall. I screamed as pieces of cement and rock rained down on us.

"Run!" Nick yelled, hauling me to my feet. I looked around and saw Sammy, Buford, and Beka running towards a narrow crack in the wall on the other side of the chamber. I started running towards them with all the strength I had in my legs. Nick took my arm and pushed me ahead of him, giving me even more speed. We hugged the wall, feeling the burn of the lasers on our backs.

An explosion tore apart the wall above us, showering down shards of metal and concrete. Pain shot through my body as pieces landed on my back, arms, and legs. Warm blood stained my shirt as I stumbled along, panting. The shots came closer as I slowed down, tired and in pain. Nick pushed me faster, desperately.

"Please, Ellie, please." He whispered in my ear. I grunted and ran faster. Sammy, Buford, and Beka were almost to the crack when a bomb flew above them, exploding in the wall ten feet above them. Sammy turned, a sardonic smile on her blood-splattered face.

That's when the wall fell.

"Look out!" I shrieked, but the wall didn't fall on them. It fell on the hole, blocking our exit.

I stopped, stunned and despairing. There was no way out. There was no escape. There was no hope. _I should've stayed with Liz. _I thought bitterly. No matter what loyalty I held for Ferb and how things used to be between us, it should've never rivaled the loyalty I had for my step-sister. I guessed I was paying for it now.

"Ellie don't stop!" Nick exclaimed frantically. I turned to him to yell at him for interrupting my downward spiral into pre-death depression. The words died on my lips as I saw what was behind him. While we had been running, the eighty-plus assassins had come down off the walls, coming towards us through the smoke and rubble like an unstoppable plague with weapons raised. I whipped my head to the left and right, almost giving myself whiplash in the process. Or maybe I did. I was already in so much pain it didn't really matter.

The exit on the right was blocked, and there was no going back to the left – there was too much smoke and half-destroyed city base to trust it. The other assassins could be hiding there in waiting. The robot had been shot up too many times to be of use anyway.

I felt a bullet rip through my shoulder and bit back a scream, tasting blood on my lips. Nick gripped my arm to comfort me, but I was shaking too much to get much from it. My eyes touched on each of the assassins coming towards us, my mind working in slow motion. There had to be a way out of this. There had to be. More shots were fired, and Nick and I hit the deck, his body sheltering me. Even though Nick was virtually on top of me, I felt pain shooting through my legs and side. Then, as if someone had whispered it in my ear, I heard a tiny voice inside my head.

_Use your powers._

I flipped onto my back, coming face to face with Nick. His features were stretched and twisted with pain, his chest and arms covered in his own blood. He coughed, spitting the blood from his mouth to the side. I took his face in my hands, pulling him even closer than he already was. Our lips were an inch apart when I spoke.

"You need to run." I said, barely able to gasp out the words.

"What…what are you…" Nick murmured. His mind was in a fog from the pain he was in, even I could see that.

"Just trust me." I whispered. I closed my eyes and imagined a million tiny sparkles of light exploding out of one beam, and felt my body dissipate into an impenetrate-able fog. The assassins cursed and kicked at the fringes of my being, but they couldn't see through it no matter what. I just hoped Sammy, Buford, Beka, and Nick could find a way to get out. I felt something pulling at the corners of my being, like a vacuum…

I struggled against the suction, trying to stay fogged over my friends. I had to give them time…just a little more time…but I couldn't fight it any longer. I was sucked inside one of those hand-held vacuum things. I quickly transformed into my condensed being to give myself room to think. It was only then that I could see the microscopic bomb on the side of the machine.

Nick's pov

I saw the vacuum thing they'd sucked Ellie into explode from a small indention we hadn't noticed before. I couldn't believe she was gone. She couldn't be gone. _No, no, no, no…_was all I could think. Sammy gripped my shoulder comfortingly, but it didn't help. I'd already lost my mom, and my older sister Carmen. Why did I have to lose everyone in my life that was important to me? Why couldn't I have a normal life like all the other kids? I was normal enough for it. I didn't even have any powers like Josh did. Josh. I wondered where he was now. We were twins, but as different as day and night. And we didn't have any really special connection like Phineas and Ferb or Ellie and Liz.

"Nick, we have to go." Sammy said softly, her British accent making her words clipped and professional – out of place for the emotions I was feeling. I got up unwillingly, not really looking where I was going. I stumbled over a rock, sending it clattering down to the feet of the assassins. They looked up, seeing the indent for the first time.

It was one of those frozen moments where you don't know what to expect. Or one of those moments where everything seems to move in slow motion, because you know what's going to happen and don't want to accept it. Two bazookas were raised, and the next thing I knew, the ceiling was caving in on us, and no one could do anything to stop it.

Within seconds, we were all buried alive.

Amber's pov

"Ferb?" I called anxiously into the smoke. "Ferb!" Someone grabbed me from behind and I flipped them onto their backs in front of me, stabbing their chest with – um, whatever that was. I jogged away from the spot, calling for Ferb. I felt an unexpected wave of anxiety come over me the more time I spent away from him. It wasn't normal for me to get involved personally in a mission. Especially not this kind of mission. _Must be nerves, _I thought, lighting up my palms so I could actually see a foot in front of me. The dust – or explosive powder, now – sparked as it came into contact with my hands. I jumped in surprise, then stuck to lighting my irises for my version of gunfight vision.

The ground shook as another explosion ripped through my eardrums. I stumbled, regained my balance, and tried to remember where I had been going before I was so rudely interrupted. I shook my head and glared at the sky – or the bottom of the ground. _Stupid ktag._ _Why did you have to get all aggressive all of a sudden?_

I hit the deck as a shower of rocks rained down on my head, hitting me in unfortunate places that incapacitated me for a while. _Okay, okay I'm sorry! _I thought angrily. The rocks let up.

"Amber!" Ferb rushed over to my side and helped me up. "Are you okay?" I nodded, brushing his hand away…slowly…

_FLASH!_

"What was that?" Ferb asked. I noticed he was too panicked to use his telepathy. Not like I was blaming him.

Lightning flashed through the air, slicing the ground like lasers, ripping apart the walls and people like they were tissue paper. The very air was gunpowder lying open and unprotected. The lightning was all the spark it needed to go off. Explosions ripped through the cave, echoing off the walls and blending into each other so you couldn't tell where one started and the other ended. I pulled Ferb into a semi-sheltered area in the cave wall. We were as good as blind in the madness, and as senseless as worms. There was no way to tell if any of the others had survived, no way to communicate; Ferb had been knocked unconscious when we had run to the shelter. All we could do was wait for the storm to pass. All the while I was cursing myself for not expecting this.

I knew who was causing the storm.

**I just want to say thank you to all my supporters and I'M SORRY THIS WASN'T FINISHED SOONER! Tell me if you liked it, hated it, or just what you thought. Reviews mean the world to me, especially those from my friends. Thank you guys for making me feel welcome in the world of Fanfiction.**


	27. The World Division

**And now I will attempt to write in third person!YAY! watch me fail! And while you're at it read the high lord of terra's awesomely awesome epicful fantastical story Siblings and Superpowers!**

The World Division is made up of a series of steps on a ladder. At the top of the ladder is the Master. He controls everything. Like, literally. He is a very powerful shadow with the ability to control the minds of up to…well, he hasn't reached his limit yet. Almost everyone in the World Division is under his little finger. Their minds are as blank as a magnet-wiped CD. The few who aren't mind-wiped zombies are on the next rung of the ladder.

Karo, Carter Henele, Tark, and Camille make up the High Command, who are above all the underlings, but still manage to qualify as underlings themselves. Sometimes they need a little push in the right direction from the Master – a little push from his unique ability. Most of the time they don't even know when he's doing it. But that can change. Slowly but surely, a traitor is emerging in the High Command. Someone who is tired of being pushed around by the older, bigger, and stronger.

Under the High Command come the tiny bands of followers to each of the members of the said group. Karo's minions are two big and stupid men – Johns and Mac, only referred to by last name for the macho reason, or possibly because they can't remember their first names – and a totally brilliant but totally unstable young scientist by the name of Kristina Lade. Carter Henele has a few minions of his own. Flare, for example, who Carter picked up as he was using his little magma power to melt through the outer wall of a bank. Also, Stephanie, whom you may have heard of, who he picked up quite easily by playing a little mind game, then rearranging her memories so she would be content to serve him and remember no loyalty at all to those annoying teens Dystopian and Beovulph. There were rumors Carter had another minion child shadow under his command, but those have never been proven. **(A/N: That means I'm going to prove it shortly, in case you didn't get that.)**

Camille, also had a few minions.

Flare, the magma-powered 13-year-old with fiery red hair and no memory of his past or his real name. Mercy Tear, the 12-year old shadow with the ability to bend the elements and a love of torturing prisoners no matter what side they were on. Thaddeus Smith, the 12-year-old Phineas-wannabe with a grudge against the said child genius and a lot of big guns to back him up as well as 15-year-old Thor Smith, who just basically likes to punch stuff. Stephanie aka CENSORED FOR SPOILERS, the 12-year-old con-ember who I already described, for those of you who fell asleep. New additions: Baljeat Rai, a genius with a growing grudge against Phineas Flynn for unwittingly occupying all of Isabella Garcia-Shapiro's attention and a recently magnetized-CD-like mind, and Vanessa Doofinshmirtz, the one who no one really knows who's side she's on.

As you might have noticed, some of Camille and Carter's minions are the same. That's because most of Camille's minions believe they are really working for Carter under Camille's supervision.

Yeah, key word: _believe._

The World Division is based on survival of the fittest. Only the strongest make it to the top – the others are left behind to pick up the scraps and feed them to the leaders. Also to provide bodies to smother the enemy in and for manual labor. Almost everyone in the World Division is a pawn, and those who aren't are still puppets. Toys. Tools.

Camille Kim was nobody's tool.

On the outside, Camille was a preppy little teen who didn't take anything seriously, but hit hard enough to make people take _her_ seriously. A powerful shape-shifter, and a loyal sidekick. Good to have under your belt in a fight. That's how the rest of the High Command saw her. After all, how much of a threat could a skinny 15-year-old girl with hot-pink streaks in her California sun-bleached hair be? She wasn't even careful enough to carry a gun around.

Carter was the smartest. He figured out that underneath that perfect prom-queen makeup and designer clothes was a skilled fighter with enough power to be a strong opponent and enough brains to win. He knew that Camille didn't carry a gun because she didn't need one. She knew fifteen ways to kill a man with her bare hands, and twenty ways to kill a girl prettier than her with her bare hands and without breaking a nail.

Unfortunately for him, that was as far as he got.

Camille was a plotter. She was a power-hungry criminal with enough brains and schemes to get her where she needed to be to get what she wanted. And what she wanted was universal domination. Why just stop at the world? The world was for quitters.

Camille had wormed her way into Carter's good graces so he would get her promoted to the High Command. She knew, even under the mind-wiped spell of the Master, what she wanted. And she was smart enough to hide it. Before she had gotten to the High Command, Camille had generously assembled a hit team composed of shadow children – for Carter, of course. When she was promoted, Carter put her in charge. Perfect. Now all she had to do was lay low until crazy Karo, Carter the murdering daddy, and Tark the I'm-so-powerful-i-don't-need-backup took each other out. Then all that stood in her way was the Master. But Camille didn't want him gone. No, she had plans for him.

Carter Henele smiled as the outcome of the attack played out before him on the seven flat screens positioned on each side of the small room. There was no light source but the television lights, no entrance or exit but the single door on the south side of the room. There wasn't even an air vent. Paranoia buys a lot of invulnerability.

"That was a good idea, Camille." He said, proud of his supposed team member. Camille shrugged.

"Whatever. I still think you should've let me deal with them. I coulda had all of those losers begging on their knees for _Mercy _by now." She smirked. Mercy would've loved that little hint. She'd have to remember to tell her. Compliments kept the child soldiers loyal.

"We don't want them to die yet, dearest." Karo said patronizingly. "We want them to die in full awareness of what we're going to do here. We want them to die on their knees, begging us with tears streaming down their faces to just kill them already as we make them suffer for everything they've put us through. We want them to die after they've witnessed our cruel murder of everyone left alive that they love. We want them to die. Unfulfilled. Unaccomplished. And miserable."

Camille yawned loudly and theatrically, exaggerating every movement.

"Yeah, nice speech. That'll go great alongside Dr. Doofinshmirtz's scrapbook of psychotic rants." She said. Karo's face turned a darker shade of ugly.

"Do _NOT _associate me with that pathetic excuse for a criminal. He's a waste of the air we breathe." She said.

"Sounds like you're _associating _yourself with him." Camille said. "Waste of the air we breathe and all." One of Karo's tentacles whipped across the table making a hissing noise as it sliced through the air and clenched Camille's neck in its robotic hold.

"Hey, hey girls, break up the cat-fight." Tark drawled softly from his seat at the table, the first time he'd spoken since the start of the meeting. His hood was down, revealing his movie-star-worthy face, his cape slightly open. Just enough to show a glimpse of killer abs and an equally-muscular chest to match. Karo slowly withdrew her robotic arm, and Camille dropped back into her chair, rubbing her neck and making a mental note to plan an especially nasty demise for the cyborg.

Carter watched all this with interest. He knew that if the Master ever stepped down, or the World Division broke apart, he and Karo would be enemies, fighting for control. He was pretty sure Camille would be with him, but he had no idea where Tark stood. The man had been a loner ever since he'd joined the World Division. He didn't even have a team of underlings to back him up. Then again when you can control the weather and create natural disasters, you didn't really need an army. Carter made a mental note to watch him.

Karo was a type of loose cannon. She had a temper that mimicked the ocean. She could be so calm one second it was a wonder she survived in the High Command at all, then kill twenty underlings in a fit of temper the next. But she was skilled. Karo was a kind of genius. She was smart, she was calculated, she could visualize the outcome of a plan to the letter. But she was never satisfied with second place, which was where Carter came in. He was one of the only reasons her plans didn't all go…according to plan.

Tark was most like Camille. He was a plotter, a schemer. He was also a loner. But he knew he couldn't do it on his own. At least, not yet. He knew he needed an edge. So he used the World Division to hitch a ride to the top. He didn't see much potential in the High Command as a whole. He saw that Carter and Karo fought too much to work to their full potential as long as they were both on the same planet. He saw potential in Camille. She had the rare mix of ruthlessness and innocence that could bring an army to its knees before it even knew what hit it. Tark looked at Camille and saw an advantage. He saw a potential ally.

After the meeting, Carter and Karo stalked off in different directions. They had been in a deadlock about how to execute the final stage of the plan for two hours straight. Camille shook her head in disgust. Amateurs. The fools didn't have a clue. She was the only real villain in this piece. She giggled to herself. Villain. What was this, a Disney Channel show? Tark caught Camille's elbow as she headed toward the elevator. She looked up, shooting the much taller man a warning glare.

"I was wondering if we could talk." He said. Camille studied his face. She knew that look. Plotting. But not hostile. She nodded.

Tark's chosen spot was a small cave by the right corner of the hastily constructed building that served as the World Division's underground base. The building was dark, everything was black from the smooth metal walls to the blacked-out windows to the hidden security cameras hidden on every square inch of wall and ceiling. Paranoia buys guaranteed loyalty.

The cave was no more than a shadow on the wall to the few outer cameras pointing in that direction. After all, when your building reaches to the top of the cavern, why look up? Inside, the cave was huge. It was stocked with state-of-the-art equipment stashed behind a false wall. No one who didn't know there was a false wall would never know. Paranoia buys kept secrets.

"Why are we here?" Camille asked suspiciously. "With all this stuff, you look like you're planning a revolt." It had occurred to her that she could be absolutely right. It had also occurred to her that this could be a test to see how loyal to the Master she really was. It wasn't as if it hadn't been done before.

"Don't worry, this isn't a test." Tark assured her. Camille wasn't convinced. Paranoia buys long life.

"Prove it." She said. Tark sighed and smiled, gesturing for her to come over to his side. Camille slowly walked over to him. Tark held up a small object and Camille gasped in shock.

"Th-that's impossible." She murmured. "How did you-?" Tark grinned slyly.

"Do you believe me now?" He asked.

"Yes." Camille nodded. "Get me up to speed."

The Master was powerful. He had been inside the minds of everyone in his organization. The Master was also _smart_. He'd looked through the memories and goals of each of them. He knew the High Command like the back of his hand. He knew Carter and Karo were loyal, and would stay loyal as long as he kept giving them what they wanted – wins. He also knew of Tark and Camille's hunger for power. He knew what they were capable of. And he knew all their weaknesses. The Master was no one to underestimate. He knew exactly who and what he was up against. And he knew exactly what to do to take them down.

But not yet.

The Master sat back in his chair, making steeples with his fingertips in the darkness as he closed his eyes, sifting through the minds of his underlings. He smiled, resting his mind on the image of Camille and Tark leaving the building together.

"First the children." He said softly. "Then we clean house."

**Whew! Tell me what you think of my long chapter! (Okay, long for **_**me.**_** Come on guys, humor me.) REVIEW!**


	28. Putting the Peices Together

**Hey! I had the chapter before this done a couple days ago, but I was sick and too lazy to upload it, so I decided I might as well give you guys two instead of one, and I really want to write more in this story all of a sudden. Ooooo I LOVE this song!**

Phineas' pov

"Liz, could I talk to you for a minute?" I asked. The brownish-redheaded girl looked suspicious, and a little confused, but she came. We walked over to the side of the passageway we had been walking down. It was dark and cold and wet, but at least no one was shooting at us yet. Beovulph, Dystopian, and Sera edged over to the middle not-so-subtly trying to eavesdrop. Steph disappeared off around a corner mysteriously, and Isabella just stood there looking lost. I noticed Beovulph shoot her a lingering glance and frowned, feeling jealous for an unknown reason.

_What's up? _Liz asked, picking her arms up and dropping them to her sides, impatient.

_What are you and Steph doing? _I asked, cutting straight to the chase. Liz pursed her lips and gave me a look like someone would give a not-too-bright two-year-old who just asked a question that had an answer too complex for their tiny mind to understand.

_We're just talking. _Liz said. _It's not my fault if not everyone thinks Isabella's a perfect little angel. _She added sourly.

_What are you talking about? _I snapped.

_I'm talking about you and Isabella. I'm talking about you always thinking she's right and always taking her side. You're the leader of this team you're not supposed to have favorites. _She hissed, venom dripping from her thoughts.

_I don't have favorites, what are you talking about? _I asked.

_She's the reason you broke up with me last summer, isn't she? _Liz asked. I froze.

_What did you say? _My voice, if I had been speaking out loud, would have been barely more than a breath.

_Oh don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking abou-_

No. _What. Did you. Say? _I repeated slowly.

_I said 'She's the reason you broke up with me last summer, isn't she'. What does it matter? Just answer the question._ Liz's thoughts were angry and filled with hurt left over from the last time we'd talked.

_But…_you _broke up with _me. I protested, confused.

_That's impossible. Josh told me – _We both froze as the truth sank in. Josh. Of course it had been Josh. And we had been too blind to see what had been going on. In hindsight, I should've figured it out. Josh had told me how much he loved Liz, and when we'd started dating, it was as if he seemed…colder (no pun intended). But Josh had always seemed like the weak link, the one who didn't exactly have enough guts to do what he was doing so he let the others take over for him. Liz suddenly gasped from my side.

"Where's Josh?" She asked. Fear ran like a lightning bolt to my brain. First Baljeat, now Josh? I turned to the others, my eyes sweeping over my team. Dystopian, Beovulph, Isabella (standing next to Beovulph?), Sera, Liz was right next to me, then there was me…

"Josh?" I asked. "Stephanie?" The others looked around, scanning the passage.

"I don't know how they managed to disappear." Liz murmured. "We only turned our backs for two minutes…" My head was reeling. I had lost two team members, what kind of a leader was I? What should I do? I sighed. There was only one thing to do. Try to get in touch with Ferb and see if he was close to the Transistor. If he was, we would have to leave it up to him and try to find the others before anyone else disappeared.

"Uh, guys." Isabella asked politely. "Sorry to bother you, but we may have a problem." I looked to where she was pointing and groaned. We most definitely did have a problem.

Dystopian's pov

Ktag was relaying the conversation to Beovulph through his earpiece. I watched the rest of the team while I waited. Phineas and Liz were having their debate over in the corner, Sera and Isabella were over here, Steph had just gone over behind that bend. Josh was…I stopped. Josh was nowhere to be seen. I sighed. Mercy. It had to be. I'd done a lot of research on the World Division, and Mercy was the only one capable of this type of thing. A quick snatch was just her thing. I made eye contact with my semi-immortal friend and nodded slowly. This was just the kind of thing we'd anticipated.

"Who are you talking to?" Isabella asked Beovulph. He smiled at her.

"I'm just talking to one of my contacts." He said. "I guess you could call them a snitch. They tell me inside things I need to know. But don't get me wrong, I'm not the one in charge in this partnership."

"Who is?" Isabella asked. Beovulph put on a sneaky face and pointed towards the ceiling.

"They are." He said. Isabella looked confused.

"That's not very specific." She said. "Almost everyone is higher up than we are right now."

"That's not what I meant." He told her.

"What do you mean?" She asked. She wasn't getting it.

"Don't think of it in a literal sense, think of it in a metaphorical sense." I hinted. Isabella's face screwed up as she processed it.

"Like God?" She asked.

"Not that high." Beovulph and I chorused.

"How high?" She wondered.

"Superior Dimension high." I told her in a spooky voice. Her eyes widened.

"We're partly from that other dimension." Beovulph took over. "Hence, the semi-immortality."

"Josh? Stephanie?" Phineas asked in a slightly-hysterical voice. We looked around. I realized, in all the explaining, I had lost track of Stephanie. Beovulph nodded at me conspireatively. It suddenly clicked. The disappearances were linked to the World Division. When I'd left Beovulph and Stephanie they'd been investigating the World Division. Carter was in the World Division. Carter's power was to mess with people's minds. Considering Stephanie's past, it was likely he'd gotten close to her. If that was the case, Carter could've twisted all the memories she had of us. Of everyone. It hit me so hard I wondered if I was going to fall over. This is what he'd been trying to tell me. Steph wasn't a good guy anymore. Steph was a snitch.

"Carter?" I asked.

"Carter." Beovulph nodded. I hissed.

"That son of a – " I began.

"Uh, guys." Isabella interrupted politely. "I think we may have a problem." Beovulph, Phineas, Liz, Sera, and I turned simultaneously to see what she was talking about. I felt sick instantly.

"Hello everyone." Mercy said. Baljeat, Vanessa, and Josh were behind her, guns raised and faces blank. They'd been wiped. "We're gonna have some fun." She whistled and the assassins who had been hiding in the rocks stalking us as we'd gone along our merry way straightened up, closing in on us from the back and the front and both sides. We were trapped.

"What have you done to them?" Phineas demanded, outraged. Mercy laughed, and her eyes lost their focus. When she spoke again, it was not in her voice.

"You should have left them out of this, _son_." Carter Henele's voice said. "Now you'll pay. You should've paid attention to the first rule of war – _know your enemy_." He laughed and Phineas growled.

"We'll see who's paying who." He said. I looked back and saw his hands begin to glow, the glow rapidly spreading along the rest of his body. I gulped, feeling a sixth sense shudder down my spine. This was getting out of hand fast.

**Ahhh grrrr. I wanted to make this chapter longer, but you know how stories tend to write themselves…anyway. REVIEW!**


	29. Unexpected Interaction!

**Since it's Phineas' birthday in my book in about a day or so Shadow Chronicles time, plus Phineas is having his b-day on Disney Channel, I'm going to grant a wish! That's right. First person to review this chapter with a wish gets it granted in the story. Here are the rules:**

**Number Eins/One/Uno/Whatever-one-is-in-languages-I-don't-speak: It must pertain to the story in question, aka Painful Truth.**

**Number 2: It can't prematurely end the book.**

**Number 3: No meddling in ROMANTIC relationships.**

**Number 4: You can't bring anyone back from the dead or kill anyone. (You can, however, mortally injure them, and I MIGHT forget to heal them.)**

**Number 5: You can't add characters (I was just cleaning house, I don't want to mess it up again.)**

**Number 6: It can't have anything to do with me. (Not that any of you care what part I have in the book, I just wanted to make that clear in case anyone wants to mess with me.)**

**Other than that, I think it's good. Have fun!**

Dystopian's pov

It was all very clear. Phineas about to go nuclear on his dad's mind-wiped attack team, everyone else ready to back him up, probably getting themselves killed in the process, the assassins surrounding us with various deadly weapons, my mind going at a hundred miles an hour trying to think up a plan so we wouldn't lose anyone…

And then it was all gone.

Okay, not necessarily _gone._ It was more like everything and everyone was frozen. Completely frozen, but not in ice or anything. In _time._ Someone had stopped time itself. I looked around expectantly, and saw Beovulph doing the same thing. Our eyes scanned the chamber. Nothing would've gotten in or out without us knowing.

"Hey guys." We jumped about a foot in the air.

"Hi ktag." Beovulph said, recovering. I glared at the tiny cat behind us. Its fur was jet black, its eyes bright red.

"Why a cat?" I asked irritantly.

"I like cats." The cat/ktag said matter-of-factly. "Anyway, I needed to talk to you guys."

"Us?" Beovulph asked.

"_All_ of you guys." Ktag said, motioning to a passageway that opened up in the wall. Two figures emerged from it almost silently. My anger flared when I saw one of them.

"Stephanie! What are _you _doing here?" I snapped.

"Oh would you _relax_, you big baby? I get to be here because I'm an outer-oc just like you." She said, skipping lightly over rocks and assassins lying down like she was in a dance class. I turned to ktag.

"What is going on here?" I asked. The cat purred lightly and licked its paw, then curled up in a tight ball of fur.

"Being a cat is so fun. My spine feels like it's made of rubber." Ktag said. Amber flicked her hair over her shoulder.

"Hi Dystopian. You must be Beovulph – I'm Amber." She said, shaking his hand.

"Nice to meet you." He said.

"Ktag? You're stalling." I said. ktag sighed.

"I guess I might as well tell you, right?" the cat stood up and morphed smoothly into a cloaked figure. "I had to call a meeting in the middle of a crisis because I wanted to tell you something. This doesn't concern Emma, Elina, and Sammy so don't ask. What I need to tell you is I'm thinking of taking you out of the book until the climax is over."

"_What_?" We chorused.

"You heard me." Ktag said. "I know you did because I created you."

"Phinbella Fan 13, irken24, the high lord of terra, and Oh For The Love Of Phineas helped. A lot." I pointed out. Ktag shrugged, the cloaked shoulders going up and down like waves.

"Whatever. They won't mind. They know it's my story anyway." I looked around.

"Hey where's – " I began.

"She might not fully join us until the next book. I'm close to the end here and I don't know how many new people I can introduce this close to the end." Ktag interrupted.

"Whatever. I'm not leaving." I said. ktag turned a cloaked head towards me.

"_What _did you say?" ktag's voice was low and deathly calm. I felt acutely aware that I was toying with someone who could erase from this world all memory of my existence, but I gulped and went on.

"I'm not leaving." I said. "I'm staying here. With Phineas and the others. I'm going to help them."

"If he's staying, I'm staying." Beovulph said loyally. "I'm not leaving Isa- I mean, the kids." I smirked. Ktag, on the other hand, was in no mood for smirking.

"Are you _disobeying my orders_?" ktag asked in disbelief.

"I believe so, Shadow Master." Beovulph said. "And with all due respect, you're not going to stop us."

"I'm not?" ktag asked, the words hanging in the air. "Are you sure?"

"Hey, I'm one of the main antagonists in this book, I'm staying too. You know, just to screw everything up and ruin all life as we know it." Stephanie said. ktag pulled back the hood and I saw an expression of disbelief and anger on our creator's face. No, not anger. _Fury_.

"_You're _disobeying me too?" ktag asked.

"Oh! Oh! So am I!" Amber squealed. "I'm so not missing out on all the fun!" Fury took the place of disbelief on ktag's face and I gulped, realizing that that might not have been the best thing for Amber to have said.

"You think testing my power and disobeying a direct order from the creator of your realm of being is _fun_?" ktag shouted, the voice twisted with rage.

"Um, let me think about it…yeah." Amber said. I gaped at her. Did she not know what angering ktag could result in?

"Will you _grow a brain_?" I hissed at her. "You're going to get us all killed!" Amber finally got the point – from what I said or from the angry sparks racing up and down what we could see of ktag's skin – and shut up, her smile dissolving. Ktag looked between us, at a loss for words. There was a long, tense silence as the author fumed, hands clutching at nothing, occasionally drawing multicolored and dangerous-looking sparks from the air.

"Fine." Ktag finally said. I was frozen for a moment in disbelief, as were the others. When we could move again we exchanged looks of amazement.

"_Fine_?" I choked out. "You're just going to let us get away with – " ktag raised an eyebrow and I bit my tongue, quickly redirecting my sentence. "I mean, you're not going to do something horrible to us?"

"I never said that." Ktag said.

"I knew it." Beovulph muttered. "I knew we couldn't just get off Scott-free."

"And you were right!" ktag exclaimed, in control – literally – once again. "Because you made me _very angry_, there will be consequences." Stephanie edged closer to the creator.

"What kind of consequences?" She asked.

"Power-related consequences." Ktag told her. "I am limiting and cutting your powers. You can't take any power you choose anymore. Just your natural power – and by that I mean the power your other creator originally chose." Ktag turned to Beovulph. "You're immortal, for the moment, until you manage to find true love and rid yourself of the curse of that little ember you ticked off two hundred years ago and blah, blah, blah, you know the drill. But you're going to lose your invulnerability for three weeks. Which just happen to be the three weeks you'll be getting shot at the most, so, good luck with that. Hope I don't kill you." Ktag swiveled to face Stephanie. "You are going to completely lose control of your mind for the remainder of this book and possibly the next, for my personal enjoyment and everyone else's complete and total horror. You'll wake up after that with a migraine and absolutely no idea of how you spent the last week and/or month."

"_And/or month_?" Stephanie screeched. Ktag ignored her, turning to Amber.

"Your powers will be of no use during the next few scenes as all of the assassins you fight will be wearing fireproof armor. You will also have to watch the boy you love suffer a fatal wound." Amber looked confused.

"The who?" She asked. Ktag smiled wolfishly.

"Yeah, that too." Ktag turned to me finally. "You're immortal." She said. "Invulnerable. And you started all of this. How do I punish you for what you've done?" ktag rose in the air, fingers moving in threatening motions as if rehearsing wringing my neck. I stared into the eyes of the shadow master, feeling no fear. It occurred to me that might have been what ktag wanted, like how with some poisons you feel happy as you die. But fearless felt good.

"What to do? What to do?" ktag circled faster, faster around me, finally stopping and landing in front of me. "I know." Ktag said. "I'll give you the worst one. You can feel the fear of not knowing."

"Not knowing." I repeated. Of course. Ktag would make me wait. Somewhere in the back of my mind it dawned on me that ktag had also just given me full invulnerability, but that part was small compared to the part that wished I could just know what would happen to me like the others.

"Yes. I'll get you someday, somehow. But I'll take my time about it." Ktag's face suddenly appeared eerie, distorted. "You won't see me coming. None of you will see me coming ever again."

And then the shadow master was gone, as quickly as they'd appeared.

We all breathed a sigh of relief. In the end, we were all really glad ktag was gone. If you haven't noticed, they're not one of the best people to hang around. Suddenly, Beovulph touched his ear.

"My earpiece." He said. "It's gone."

"Ktag must have taken it." I said. I looked over at Stephanie and Amber…who weren't there. Of course not. My attention was soon drawn away from their absence by a bigger problem. The people around me were moving again, as if in slow motion. But they were speeding up.

"Get ready." I said. "We are going to need all our concentration for this next stunt." Beovulph nodded.

"The odds were looking a lot better when the author of this story wasn't mad at us." He pointed out.

"Yeah." I agreed, then focused all my thoughts on how the heck we were going to get out of this.

**Okay I was going to do some stuff with Phineas' group in this chapter, but I decided to leave you guys another window of opportunity open for the wish thing. Any-way. Do something good guys, I have a high expectation for you. Don't disappoint me. Now REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!**


	30. The Choices and The Capture

**Okay! So in case you were wondering, vcawarrior got the wish, and I hope you (vcawarrior) enjoy it and I hope I did it the way you'd hoped.**

Ferb's pov

Smoke cleared slowly after the shots stopped firing. Amber's body was tense, her muscles tight and motionless, like she was frozen. She unfroze a couple minutes before the smoke cleared.

"Do you see anything?" She asked. I shook my head.

_No. Nothing for the longest time._ I said. _Have _you_? _The last part came out a bit sharper than I'd intended, but she'd had me worried. Nobody I'd ever known had frozen up for half an hour without being seriously injured.

"No." She said after a pause. I sighed.

_Let's just get out there and find the others._ I said. Amber hesitated as I got up, but didn't argue, following me out into the smoky chamber. I wasn't going to be stupid enough to call for them out loud, or even in open telepathy. I focused my power, limiting the receivers of my message to the ones who'd been with us when we entered the chamber.

_Hello, if anyone is still alive to get this message, this is Ferb. I'm with Amber and we're on the Northeastern wall of the chamber. Meet us here if you can. If not, at least tell me where you are._ We waited.

_I'm here mate. _It was Beka's voice. _Sammy took a rock to the head, and she's unconscious. Don't know where anyone else went. I've got to stay here with her. We're concealed, you go on._

_Elina and I are safe. _Mum said. _We're, ah, talking with some of the assassins._ I shook my head.

_That's okay, Mother, you can say 'shooting'._ I said.

_Okay then. Auntie Elina and Mummy are killing the big bad men with alien bazookas._ I made a face.

_Mother, I'm fifteen._ I said, then, _Did you say 'alien bazookas'?_

No answer. Of course not.

I sighed and reached out to the people who had not answered.

_Ellie? Nick? Buford?_ I asked. No answer. My heart sped up. _Guys this isn't funny. Answer me._ No answer. Amber laid a hand on my shoulder. I looked up and saw her worried expression. She must've seen the look on my face….or I'd forgotten to cut her out of the communication.

"Communication." Amber said. "And your face. I'm good like that."

"How did you…?"

"You haven't locked your mind yet." She pointed out.

"Oh." I locked my thoughts, sighing. "We should go." I said. Amber nodded.

"I guess it's just you and me, huh?" She asked, giving me a pointed look.

I blinked, not catching on.

"We could do better with more people…" She hinted.

I blinked again, that being the most effective response I could think up at the moment. My mind was filled with other things…things like my friends dying. Amber sighed.

"Your brother's here, isn't he?" She asked, exasperated. I wanted to kick myself.

"Oh." I said. _Duuuuuuuh._

"We should team up with them. I mean, I know you two are in a fight but _seriously_? Can't you put your differences aside to save the world? And our lives?" She asked. I bit my lip.

"I guess so." I said reluctantly. Amber grinned.

"Great." She said. "Let's go."

"Not so fast." A voice said from behind us. We turned to see Thaddeus and Thor approaching with freakishly huge and pointy guns. I remembered something my mum had said about alien bazookas.

_Amber?_ I asked.

_What's up?_ She replied.

_I think we should go very, very fast._

_Good idea._

3rd person pov

The group of cloaked figures picked their way through the dark tunnel silently. The only sounds were of water dripping in tunnels far below them.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" The figure who was second in line asked.

"Of _course_ I am." The leader snapped.

"So in other words, you're lost." The third in line summed up. The leader stopped to glare with glowing red eyes at them. The third just giggled. "How do you _do_ that?" They asked. The leader turned back, exasperated.

"Hey, I think I see something up there!" The fourth yelled. All six of them squinted into the darkness.

"I see it too!"

"There it is!"

"Finally!"

"Why didn't we just teleport here in the first place?"

"I agree with the high lord of terra." The third in line said, gesturing to the cloaked figure in front of them.

"Thank you, PhinbellaFan13." Terra replied smugly. The leader pulled back the hood of their cloak and scowled at the two of them.

"It's for effect." Ktag explained.

"Why did we have to walk the whole way here?" irken24, the fourth in line asked. "I mean, you could've just _said_ we walked the whole way instead of actually making us walk the whole way."

"I second the motion!" Oh for the Love of Phineas said, crossing their arms from the back of the line.

"I like authenticity." Ktag shrugged. "Glad to see you back, irken24, by the way."

"Thanks. Glad to know I was missed." They replied. The procession moved forward a few feet until they were standing in front of the object of interest. They stood before it, admiring it.

"So." Terra said finally. "How are we going to get it down?" The five of them looked at ktag, who stared back in exasperation and disbelief.

"_Seriously?_" ktag groaned. "Don't you guys have your pencils?"

"Ohhhhhh." They said simultaneously.

"I mean, do I have to think of _everything_?" Ktag went on.

"Okay, okay, you've made your point, you don't have to stress it." PhinbellaFan pointed out as the authors took out pencils from the folds of their cloaks.

"Is it just me or is this really kind of strange?" OFTLOP asked.

"It's not just you. It's the fact that we're in ktag's story." Irken whispered.

"I heard that!" ktag yelled in a fake-hurt voice.

"And…?" irken prompted. Ktag pouted for a minute.

"And good point."

The authors raised their pencils, rubbing them between the palms of their hands for a couple seconds. Then, with a lot of showing off and a very small amount of power that was really needed, the seven of them raised their pencils and created a vortex that converged on the top of the object, transporting it to a special place for later.

"That was fun." PhinbellaFan giggled.

"I agree. Did you guys see what I did there? With the space-time portal?" Terra gloated.

"Yeah but it wasn't as epic as what I did with the distorted wall." Irken argued.

"Let's do it again!" OFTLOP yelled.

"Actually, we have to go. The others should be coming any second." Ktag said.

"Kill joy." Terra muttered.

"Seconded." Irken agreed in an equally-low voice.

"Well, you can't meet yourselves here, can you?" ktag tried to reason with them.

"That seems pretty fun." PhinbellaFan pointed out.

"Shut up."

"I agree. Why can't we?" OFTLOP asked.

"Because, in case you haven't noticed by the round-about route and suspicious looks we got in the Limbo entrance, we're not supposed to be here." Ktag said patronizingly.

"O." OFTLOP said. "What did you do?"

"Nothing!" ktag protested.

"Uh-huh. We all believe that." Irken said sarcastically. "By the way why hasn't CENSORED spoken this entire time?" They looked down at the page. "What? Why did you just censor CENSORED's name? ktag! You did it again!"

"CENSORED's character is not IN this story yet!" ktag explained loudly. Ktag turned around. "Hey! Terra! What are you doing?" Terra jerked away from the entrance to the chamber.

"What? Nothing! Why would you think I was doing anything?" They asked.

"Don't you have a wish to grant?" the sixth author asked.

"Oh. Yeah. Good point. Hey, are you just distracting me from…from…what were we talking about?" ktag asked, suddenly very confused.

"Nothing." OFTLOP said soothingly. "Why don't you lead us out of here?" ktag nodded slowly, holding a hand to their head. Ktag began to walk back the way they had come, but the other five authors stayed behind.

"Doesn't suspect a thing." Terra gloated quietly with an excited grin.

"I can't believe ktag was stupid enough to have us all here at once." PhinbellaFan laughed.

"This'll teach the shadow master to mess with our characters." Irken said, pulling a very convincing evil grin.

"Did you get it done?" OFTLOP asked Terra. Terra nodded quickly, glancing at ktag's back.

"We should go." The sixth said, taking the words right out of Terra's mouth.

"Let's go. I want to be clear before ktag figures out what we did." Irken said. Nobody argued.

Phineas' pov

I felt the burning spread through my body and struggled to avoid gasping as the heat spread from my chest to my head, arms, and legs. My skin began to glow and I felt the unimaginable _power_ coursing through my veins. Nothing like normal shadow power, not to mention human power.

Humans and shadows are like sister species. Many humans were…born, I guess you could say…from the same creatures as shadows. Once, a long, long time ago, when planet earth was still in its early revolutions and Adam and Eve still walked its grounds, a rogue energy being called Zeus and wandered over to this part of the universe and became attracted to a human female. Long story short, they got married and all that crap, and Zeus and his kids he had with the human girl hung around with the humans. Because Zeus passed on his powers to many of his children, they were looked on as gods and goddesses by the powerless humans. The human girl and the children who ended up, by some odd twist of fate, with no powers, were forgotten. The 'powerless' children were the ancestors of people like Ferb who had dormant shadow powers, and the powerful ones were the ancestors of people like me, my siblings, Liz, and Josh. The totally powerless humans are descendants of humans already around before all this happened.

I laughed wickedly under my breath. With all the power of an ember, I could take out all of Carter's assassins, _all on my own._ My head jerked up as a plan flashed through my brain in a spark of neurons. I grabbed Liz's hand and pulled her over to the others.

"Dystopian, Beovulph." I hissed. The two turned to me.

"What?" Dystopian asked.

"While I distract the assassins, you guys take everyone else and get out of here. Find the Transistor. Ferb can shut it off." I said.

"I'm not leaving without you." Isabella said indignantly. I glanced at Beovulph.

"Yes, you are." I said.

Beovulph nodded in understanding as Isabella crossed her arms in defiance. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists, willing the power through my veins, through my skin, through my muscles and bones and organs. I felt the others stepping away from me and the assassins freezing as I was lifted into the air. The combined fire and telekinesis that I was projecting created a sort of energy storm around me. Fire columns roared all around me, and a vortex of invisible power crackled with a sudden purple spark. I looked through my power, my eyes still closed, and saw the assassins backing away. I caught movement towards the back corner and saw the girl who had been leading the assassins and Vanessa and Baljeat reorganizing the assassins to go around my energy storm. I also caught Karo and Camille from the World Division's High Command moving to block my friends as they tried to escape. I took a deep breath, and gave the power one last command.

And I let it flow through my mind.

The energy came on like a wave, one of the huge, unstoppable waves that are on the ocean in a storm. I struggled a bit before finally letting it take over my freedom of thought and self-control. I saw what I did as if from a distance. It wasn't like I was doing it at all – in a way, I wasn't.

I watched as my hands directed the fire towards the chamber wall, creating a huge hole in it for my friends to get out of. I watched as my thoughts directed the fire to block everyone else from following them. I watched as my power shot out of my hands and feet, slaughtering assassins on every side. The leader girl ran towards me, and I watched as I pushed against her. I watched as she fought against me with impressive strength for a normal shadow. I watched as my hands directed a torrent of power at her, pushing her to the ground. I heard a snap, and she didn't move again.

Suddenly, something stung my neck, and I was snapped back into my body. My vision blurred and I gasped in pain and shock, falling to the ground and struggling to my knees, stunned. I looked up, seeing the shuddering forms of the World Division coming towards me. I tried to raise my head to look at who had stung me, but just then they hit me again and I grunted, than gave up and faded into the dark.

**Okay so this was kind of long for me, but not as long as I thought it would be. Next couple chapters are the final countdown (ba duh dee dum) to the end of the story (ba da duh duh dum). **


	31. A Dangerous Game

**It's the final countdown! Duh duh dee dum…okay, okay, it's getting old, I get it, DON'T JUDGE ME!**

Beovulph's pov

We ran along the corridor away from the fight. I hoped Phineas would be okay…

"I should've stayed with him." Dystopian said for the fiftieth time.

"_I _should've stayed with him!" Isabella and Liz chorused for the fiftieth time.

"Both of you shut up and run. Your lives depend on it. And more importantly, _my _life depends on it." Josh said. I ran over and slapped him.

"Isabella's life is currently more important than yours so I would keep my mouth shut." I said in a dangerous warning tone, lifting him up by his neck.

"Yeah, okay, whatever you say dude." Josh choked out from my death grip.

"Beovulph!" Dystopian hissed. I dropped Josh, looking back at the others. Liz had her hands lit up with electricity, and Sera was crouched in a fighting position, but her face showed that she wasn't sure which side she would be fighting for if it came to it. Dystopian looked angry, but not in disagreement. I glanced at Isabella. She looked…impressed...maybe even flattered.

"Sorry." I muttered.

"No problem. But now that we're not moving I think we should focus on moving again or at least finding a new hiding place before the World Division catches up with us." Josh said.

"What do those guys have against you anyway?" Isabella asked.

"Oh, we foiled one little evil thing of theirs and now they hate us and want us to die." He shrugged. "It's just…one of those things."

"Very nice." I said dryly. "Those guys are no match for us, anyway." Dystopian grabbed my arm and yanked me away from the others.

"Beovulph." He hissed. "We don't really have our powers, remember?" I stopped.

"Oh. Dang." I said. "But you still have your powers, right?"

"Yeah, but I'm pretty much under ktag's curse, so we can't really count on that." He pointed out.

"Hmm." I said. "Well I guess we could hide out for a while."

"No, we have to find the Transistor and stop it within half an hour." Isabella pointed out.

"You were listening to that?" I asked.

"Yep. Who's ktag?" She asked.

"No time. We have to get the Transistor." Ferb said. We turned to see him and Amber run up to us.

"Where's everyone else who was supposed to be with you?" I asked.

"Busy or dead. Where's my brother?" Ferb shot back.

"Dead? What about Ellie?" Liz asked.

"Nick?" Josh wondered.

"Both dead." Ferb whispered.

"Yikes." I muttered. "That can't be good."

"Did you get photographic evidence?" Josh demanded. We turned to him.

"Did we – _what_?" Amber yelled.

"I _need _photographic evidence, or it didn't happen." Josh crossed his arms.

"Oh, believe me, it happened." Amber said.

"_Evidence?_" Josh yelled.

"_THEY DON'T HAVE EVIDENCE YOU IDIOT! NOW SHUT UP AND HELP ME KILL THE PEOPLE WHO KILLED MY SISTER OR SHUT UP AND GET OUT OF MY WAY!_" Liz screamed.

"Liz?" Isabella edged closer to me. "Your hair's on fire." A line of electricity shot out from Liz's hand and hit Isabella in the chest. She grunted and fell to the ground, clutching her torso with both hands. I glared at Liz, reaching for my sword. Liz noticed and smiled wolfishly.

"Bring it, freak." She said.

"I'm not the one who's glowing." I shot back.

"Both of you, calm down." Dystopian said. We ignored him and kept glaring at each other.

"Um, he-llo? You guys are supposed to be united against us, not each other." We turned to see Camille looking very poutyish, surrounded by the other members of the World Division's high command. None of us moved for a long moment. Josh snapped a picture.

"Actually, a house divided against itself cannot stand. Abraham Lincoln." Karo pointed out.

"Okay then." Tark cracked his knuckles. "Let's just kill them."

"I second the motion." Carter said, holding up his AK-47.

"Seconded. Or is it thirded?" Camille tapped on hot-pink nail to her chin.

"Motion carried." Karo shot three heat-seeking missiles at us.

"Oh." Amber began.

"Crap." Liz finished.

"Scatter!" I yelled.

We dove in all different directions, me dragging Isabella, who had passed out from Liz's blast. One missile followed Amber and Ferb, then turned into a robot dog in midair and turned to the WD growling. The second and third missiles followed Liz, who was so angry she couldn't turn her electricity off. The missiles exploded all over her and Isabella's eyes fluttered as she coughed herself into consciousness.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah…I…think…so…" She said. The smoke cleared and Liz stood by the back wall behind a wall of electricity looking very, very, pissed.

"You really, really, shouldn't have done that." She said. She grunted and shoved the wall towards the WD, who scattered just before it tore a huge hole in the chamber wall. The room shook and dust fell from the ceiling.

"Liz, calm down!" Dystopian yelled. She didn't listen, rising into the air and hurling bolts of electricity at them, looking a lot like an avenging angel or an angry goddess. The walls shook with her anger, and the ceiling was quickly filling with holes as the WD returned fire. I sighed.

"Idiot." I said, drawing my sword. I ran out towards the closest member of the high command, which happened to be Camille. "Hello." I said, hitting her over the head with the sword. She fell and turned over, feeling her head with one manicured hand.

"You. Messed. Up. My. Hair." She said. I gaped.

"_Seriously_?" I said in disbelief.

"Exactly. You don't get any more serious than that." She agreed, shifting into a giant blue alien that totally ripped off Avatar. I frowned.

"Hey that's copyrighted! This isn't a cross-over!" I yelled.

"I'm a villain, I can do whatever I want." She pointed out.

"Yeah, no." I said, swinging my sword over and slicing her right arm off. Red blood squirted from the wound, making a pool on the floor.

"Wow, red blood. Who knew?" She muttered, shifting a replacement arm into place. She took out a knife and stabbed at me with it. I jumped back and swung the sword again. She blocked my sword and kicked at my stomach. Her foot connected and made a clanking sound.

"Body armor." I explained. Camille glared and stabbed at my chest. Pretty much the same result. I grabbed her arm and flipped her onto her back, holding my sword to her throat. "Check and mate, drama queen." I said.

"Not exactly." Camille took out a ray gun and shot me in the chest. A smoking hole appeared in my body armor.

"Crap." I said.

Dystopian's pov

Sera and I jumped towards the wall and ducked down as Liz started a shoot-out with the WD. I shielded the little girl from falling objects and electricity with my sword.

"Dystopian, what's going on?" Sera asked. "What's daddy doing here? What's he trying to do?"

"_Daddy?_" Ferb and Amber chorused.

"Hello to you too." I muttered.

"Look out!" Someone yelled. I ducked just as one of Karo's arms swung over me and demolished rock right where my head had been five seconds earlier.

"You always get in the way!" She yelled.

"Actually, that time I got out of the way." I corrected, slashing at her arm with my sword. Sparks flew as the metals connected, but neither was strong enough to break the other. Karo thrust at me with two of her arms. I parried and tried to draw her away from Sera, Ferb, and Amber. Karo shot another of her arms at me and I did a flip in the air, coming down on top of her arm. She gave a sort-of strangled cry and shook her arm, trying to get me off.

"You stupid boy! Get away from me!" She yelled.

"Your voice is really annoying. I can fix that." I said. I transformed into a shadow-being and slithered down her arm and into her throat. She screamed until I choked her out and tried to grab at me, but it was no use. You can't grab something that isn't even solid. I clogged her throat and stuffed up her lungs, spreading through her blood. Karo spiraled quickly towards a painful demise courtesy of me. I felt as Karo slipped into unconsciousness, and felt how much longer I would have to stay within her to kill her.

Then everything went wrong.

"Beovulph!" Isabella screamed from outside Karo's body. _Oh no._ I thought. I retraced my path to Karo's brain to try to get access to her eyes. That was when the second thing went wrong.

As I got access to Karo's eyes, I saw a tiny wristwatch on her arm. But it was _glowing_. Alarm bells went off in my head as soon as I caught sight of the fancy capital C in the center. Carter's sign. I knew then that I had to get out of Karo. _Now._

Too late.

An electrical shock ran through Karo's body, and, in turn, me too. I would've screamed if I'd had a mouth, the shock blinding my vision and wiping my mind blank, my 'body' filling with inescapable pain. I felt my powers losing their effect, but wasn't sure exactly what that meant. As soon as the shock ended, it was clear enough.

I was human again. But I wasn't normal sized. I was tiny, about the size of a germ, floating toward Karo's heart. I saw the valves ahead of me and my eyes widened. They pumped through germs and cells, separating the good from the bad. By crushing them. I tried to swim away, but the current was too strong. I turned to see the valves growing ever closer and gave one last desperate pull against the current. No use. _My powers! _ But I couldn't use them, no matter how hard I tried. _Ktag._ I thought. _Is this what you meant?_

"Ready?" The high lord of terra asked. Irken24 grinned and turned to the computer that covered the wall in front of the two.

"Born ready." Irken said. "Initiating meddling technic version three." Irken pressed a big red button.

"Want some popcorn?" Terra asked.

"Sure, why not?" Irken shrugged. "This is going to be interesting."

**I know it's ironic that I'm writing people trying to thwart my evil plan, but it's fun! Plus, I'm still the most powerful one in the story so I can do whatever I want anyway. It's just natural that I should have some competition, and what better competition than my friends? Hehe, if you guys want to tell me something you want to do, go right ahead in a review. And if any of you other people want something to happen, feel free to write that down as well. I'll think about it, but there's no guarantees that I'll put it in. Then again, you guys tend to have amazingly good ideas, so there's a good chance it could happen.**


	32. Betrayed

**Okay so I'm thinking two, maybe three chapters left. And an epilogue. Just have to wrap up a few loose ends…I was just reading Siblings and Superpowers by the high lord of terra and I was thinking along the lines of '**_**WHAAAAAA! WHY CAN'T MY STORIES BE THIS GOOD?**_**' in case you didn't get that, it means READ SIBLINGS AND SUPERPOWERS BY THE HIGH LORD OF TERRA! After you read this chapter because terra's might be better but I will kill you if you leave. ;D**

Phineas' pov

I woke up with the feeling that someone had stuffed my skull full of gunpowder and lit a match. My eyelids fluttered and I moaned, trying to roll over and see where I was. Every movement sent an explosion of pain through my body. I gasped, and my vision finally cleared. I was staring up at the top of a cage. Bars made of green energy pulsed up and down around me. My hands and feet were shackled with glowing cuffs that looked suspiciously like power neutralizers.

"Phineas?" A small voice asked. I tilted my head slowly to see who it was. When I recognized her, I glared.

"Traitor!" I hissed. "What have you done?" Stephenie looked hurt.

"Phineas, it's me. Don't you know me?" She whimpered.

I shook my head, confused.

"You _have _to. Please, remember." She whispered.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I snapped. "Where are the others?"

"Phinsy, it's me! Why don't you see that? Don't you remember _anything_?" She cried.

Phinsy?

Oh.

Oh.

_Oh._

Memories broke through the barrier I'd set up when we left my dad. A little girl sitting beside me on an old couch. Huddling close to my siblings in the dark, cold apartment as our parents raged downstairs. The fire. The fear. The pain of the burns mixing with the pain of the confusion and horror at the realization of what had happened. Of what I'd done.

"Aria?" I whispered as if saying it out loud would make her disappear. Arianna Henele/Flynn. My twin sister. Aria smiled in excitement.

"You remember." She sighed.

"Are you sure you know where we're going?" I asked for what felt like the fiftieth time.

"Positive. Trust me." Aria said.

We were hugging the walls of the WD's HQ. Aria was leading me to the control center. From there we could possibly – if we were very, _very _lucky – shut down the Transistor. Or at least find out where it was. Aria poked my shoulder and I shrugged apologetically, realizing I'd dropped out of it. My sister pointed to a door and grinned, disappearing from sight. I blinked, then nodded knowingly.

"Teleportation." I muttered. I rubbed my wrists where the cuffs had bit in, trying to get my power to flow as easily as it had before I'd gone crazy in the chamber. I touched the doorknob and grunted, annoyed at how hard it was to unlock a door with my powers. My arm started to cramp a second before I heard the tell-tale _click._ I sighed in relief and pushed the door open, massaging my arm and kicking it gently shut behind me.

I looked around the huge room I was in. It looked like the boiler room in my school. Huge tubes and pipes and machinery that looked like it came from a stone-age generator or was pieced together from scraps of old cars and other things you could find in a junkyard wove and dipped around the room.

"Where's the – "

"Over here." Aria motioned for me to join her at a computer screen. I walked over to her and stared up at the screen. It was an entire map of the underground of Danville. Aria hovered close beside me, her eyes on my face as I studied the map. As I looked at it, I began to frown, my eyes widening in shock.  
"This can't be right." I said. "This can't be right. If this is right, it means that Carter and the rest of the World Division have outposts all over Danville and under it." I typed commands into the computer, moving the position of the map. "So many outposts…Vanessa's dad's house…That one house with the creepy guy living next door to Isabella…wait." I went back to Maple Drive and squinted. "That…it says there's an informant…at _my_ house."

"That's because there is." Aria said in a somewhat robotic voice. "Or at least, there will be." I whipped around to see her pointing a gun at my chest. Her face was completely emotionless, like there wasn't even a person inside of her. Or…I looked at her eyes closely. They were glassed over, dull.

Like there was someone inside of her.

"Good guess." A voice said behind us. I turned around, looking up into my dad's eyes. He smirked and I shut my eyes tightly against his mental powers. "Nice try, Phineas. You always were the smart one. But I've gotten much better control over my powers since the last time we met."

"Leave me alone!" I ran for the door, forgetting everything but getting out of there. Something slammed into my back and I dropped to the floor, paralyzed. Aria's gun. Duh.

"Did you really think we would let such an asset as you just walk away?" Carter laughed. "You shouldn't have come here, Phineas. Now, you're never getting out." The last thing I felt was his cool fingers brushing my forehead, then something that felt like a massive headache.

And then I was gone.

**REVIEW!**


	33. Like Father Like Daughter

**Okay so it's been REALLY long, and I apologize. I missed my little tortured characters, and I know I just left you all hanging, and I'm really sorry. I hope you guys are still out there and reading this because I love you all and I don't want to lose you guys as my fans. anyway. Enjoy!**

Beovulph pov

_I should be dead._

But I wasn't. The shot went through my body, straight to my heart.

_I should be dead._

"Crap." I said, but I felt nothing. Camille's smile dissipated.

"Why aren't you dead?" She asked, frowning. Her perfect pink lips were set in a pouty frown.

"Should I be? I'm sorry." I stabbed down, slicing her throat. She didn't make a sound as her eyes bulged and her hands twitched in agony as blood poured from the wound.

_I should be dead._

So why wasn't I?

Dystopian pov

Karo's heart was killing me. It was choking me out of existence like I was a disease. I strained one last time through the pain I was feeling to use my powers and _get the hell out of here._

It worked.

I couldn't believe it at first, so stunned that I was intangible once again that I forgot to use it. But that only lasted for a moment. I oozed my way towards her throat, planning on escaping her body for good. As soon as I exited her, I shape-shifted into a normal human, coughing and spitting on the ground before her. Gears whirred and machinery shifted as Karo rose to her full height atop her four mechanical arms.

"I don't know what just happened and frankly I don't care." She said. "All I care about right now is killing you." I struggled to my feet, facing her with my sword drawn.

"Sorry to disappoint you." I coughed.

Ktag pov

"You _reversed my curse on the characters_?" I screamed at Terra and Irken. They looked at each other.

"I don't remember that happening." Irken said.

"Me either." Terra agreed. I frowned at them.

"How could you? Whose side are you two on?" I continued.

"Hey, you're the one typing on the laptop in their living room." Terra pointed out. I stomped my foot in a fit of childish rage.

"No breaking the eighth wall!" I yelled.

"The what?" Irken laughed.

"The…eighth…wall… You know the fourth wall…but we're outside of it so the fourth wall of the fourth wall… Ugh." I hissed, annoyed. Terra and Irken laughed.

"You're too stressed about these stories. Relax, we've got your back." Irken said.

"And besides, if you killed Beovulph and Dystopian, the stories would get a lot more boring." Terra pointed out. I tackled him and wrapped my hands around his neck.

"_More_ boring?" I shouted.

"Yikes, have you actually gotten crazier since you left?" Terra phased through me, taking a seat on a leather couch. I clenched my fists several times, giggling maniacally.

"Hehehehehehe. Exaaaaactly." I smirked. "Oh whatever, maybe you guys are right. Hey…where's PhinbellaFan 13 and OFTLOP?" They exchanged an uneasy look. I frowned again. "They had better not be doing something against me."

"Oh don't worry, they're not." Terra assured me.

"We hope." Irken added.

Ferb pov

Lightning struck the ground next to me and I fell. Tark was hovering above me on a tornado-like vortex, some sort of scepter made of fire in his hand. He pointed it at me and shot a second bolt. I rolled out of the way just in time, feeling the shock in my bones and teeth. Tark laughed from beneath his cloak.

"Your kind of power is useless against mine." He told me. "Why don't you make another robot dog and go fight Karo? You can't win here." I frowned, vowing to avenge my fallen creation.

"Try me." I hissed. He waved a hand at me and a vortex of wind started up, surrounding me and sucking away the oxygen. I coughed and gasped, falling to my knees. Tark laughed.

"Pathetic. Your brother put up much more of a fight." He laughed.

My head snapped up as rage coursed through my veins. _Phineas…_ I lifted my head, a roar coming out of my mouth and power exploding from my body. The wind wall dispersed as Tark was blown backwards by the telepathic wave. I stood up, advancing on him as he levitated himself back on his feet. He looked at me, eyes glowing like burning coals under his hood.

"Where. Is. Phineas?" I growled. Tark laughed wickedly.

"He's with his father." He said.

With a roar, I lunged at him, conjuring up another telepathic wave and forcing it at him. This time, Tark was ready and pushed a wall of fire at me to weaken my offense. I shut my eyes and held my hands out in front of me, wishing desperately that I had Phineas' ability to create an invisible force field. I waited for the burn of fire against my skin, but felt nothing. I opened my eyes slowly and saw the fire burning outside of an invisible bubble.

For a moment, I thought I actually had created a force field. Then I looked to my right. My mouth dropped open and I gasped for words.

"Amber…?" I managed. The red-head grinned at me.

"You handle mental, I'll take physical." She said, pressing her hands down. The fire obeyed and acted similarly. Past the flames, Tark clenched the fist that held the scepter and his eyes burned brighter and fiercer.

"Two birds with one stone." He growled under his breath and lifted his scepter into the air. A huge crash of thunder pushed us to the ground, covering our ears. When I pulled my shaking hands away, my fingers were stained with blood. I frowned. This was going to be tough.

Liz pov

I was shooting pretty much randomly, but my main opponent was Carter. The others were 'too busy' in 'death matches' with the others. Damn creeps. I wanted to kill them all. Ellie was the only one who kept me sane. Ellie and sometimes Phineas, and now I'd lost them both. I knew Phineas was gone, he'd dropped off my telepathic radar. I was going to tell Ferb when I was finished with these worms. I fired another bolt of lightning-like energy that split into eight different bolts and hit the shield Carter put up. He fired a rocket at me and I crossed my arms in front of my chest, bracing myself and absorbing the energy while deflecting the hard metal of the rocket.

"Did you kill my sister?" I screamed at him. He laughed.

"How should I know? I don't keep track." He replied, taking out a machine gun and opening fire.

I put up a bubble-like field and shot down towards him, using a smoke screen by heating my energy with my anger. I reached him and knocked the gun easily out of his hands, wrapping my arms around his chest and pinning his arms to his sides. I touched my lips to his ear.

"Before you die, I want you to feel the pain I'm feeling right now. But since you don't have a heart and therefore I can't kill anyone to hurt you, I'm going to show you the pain physically. Before I kill you, I'm going to give you such an unbearable amount of pain that even if you escape it will never leave you as long as you live." I said, pushing my energy into one fist and preparing to claw his heart. To my surprise, Carter laughed.

"Now, now, darling," He said in a fake caring voice. "Is that any way to treat your step-father?" I froze.

"Wha-wha-wha-?" I managed.

_Phineas' father is my step-father. I'm related to Phineas._

"Goodnight, _daughter_." He cackled, then flipped me around so I was staring into his eyes. In a low voice he added, "I will show you pain."

And then that was all there was.

Only pain.

**So how'd I do? I hope I'm not too rusty :S REVIEW and tell me what you think!**


	34. Isabella the Hero

**Okay so I'm gonna need to do something drastic so I can end this and get onto the next book. Just cause I want to. Plus, I could have these guys fighting forever and they would get tired after a while or, I don't know, figure out a way to free Phineas and that would just be bad…for…the…plot… Yeah. I'm watching too much PF, Doofinshmirtz's voice is haunting me. Ugh.**

Sera pov

"Sorry to disappoint you." Dystopian said, facing Karo with his sword drawn. I frowned as she held up two of her arms, sharp spikes coming out from both of them.

"Cheater." I hissed. It wasn't fair that she had two sharp things and he had one. I put my hands together, feeling my palms warm up. I pulled them further and further apart as Dystopian fought Karo. The warm ball of red energy grew the more strength I put into it and the further my hands got from each other. Karo knocked Dystopian to the ground in one swift movement, causing his sword to slide away from him. She raised a spike, pinning him to the ground with the other. I decided that the energy ball was big enough and threw it at her. It struck the arm pinning Dystopian to the ground, slicing it in half as well as creating a massive explosion that blocked them both from my view. When the smoke cleared, Dystopian had pulled the spike out of his arm and was holding it at Karo's neck.

I grinned, clapping my hands happily. Suddenly, a scream of agony ripped through the air. I looked towards where it had come from and saw Daddy standing over Liz. Her back was arched in pain and her eyes were white and bulging out of her head. Her body was covered in snake-like lines of green energy – apparently she was in so much pain that she had lost control of her powers. The chamber ceiling began to shake, the walls crumbling slowly as parts of the ceiling began to cave in.

"Time to go." Dystopian grabbed me and headed for the exit.

"Wait! What about Liz?" I asked as the others followed our lead, scrambling to get out. "And where's Phineas?"

"Where is Phineas?" Ferb wondered anxiously. Beovulph had Isabella in his arms.

"Phineas can take care of himself, but we need to get out of here _now_." He said.

"What about Liz?" I repeated, struggling against Dystopian's iron grip. Beovulph looked back at the screaming girl.

"Leave her." He said. "She'll only slow us down."

"And carrying someone won't?" I shot back stubbornly, wiggling free of the shadow knight and rushing back towards the red-headed girl. Daddy and the others had already gotten out, and were out of sight. The only one left was Camille, who was bleeding from her throat. Liz was still writhing in pain on the ground. I had to find some way to cut Daddy's connection to her.

"Sera! Get back here!"

Someone yelled. I ignored them, grabbing Liz's shoulders and pulling with all my might. Her energy outpour had no effect on me, because I had the same general powers. She wasn't that heavy, but neither was I, and it took all my strength to get her even a couple feet towards the door. A chunk of the ceiling fell just beside us, water spraying from a ruptured pipe that reminded me we were still below the city.

"Sera!"

I looked up just in time to see a massive piece of rock bearing down on us. I let go of Liz's shoulders and tried to form enough energy in my hands to make a small indent in the rock, but it was no use. My still-developing powers would have no effect on it whatsoever. I held my hands over my head and squeezed my eyes shut.

"SERA!"

Isabella pov

I woke up and the chamber was crumbling around us, the ground shaking. Beovulph, Dystopian, Josh, Ferb and Amber were arguing animatedly above me. I was in Beovulph's arms. I looked around and saw all the damage to the chamber. _Stupid Liz._ I thought. _I warned her, didn't I?_ Something caught my eye in the middle of the chamber. Or, more specifically, some_one_. Two someones. Sera was dragging and unconscious Liz towards us, slowly. At that pace, she'd only get a few more feet before the entire thing collapsed on top of her. I jumped down from the teenager's arms, running towards Sera with only one thought – I had to get her out of here.

"Isabella, wait!" Beovulph shouted. I ignored him, picking up speed as a chunk of the ceiling came loose and fell in my path. I grimaced, fighting the urge to scream. I used a few ruptured pipes as leverage and vaulted over the mess.

"Sera!" I called, landing within twenty feet of the girls. Suddenly, a massive piece of the ceiling came free, falling towards them. My eyes widened in shock and horror, and adrenaline pushed me faster towards them, my hands heating up of their own will. "SERA!" I yelled as she held her hands above her head in self-defense.

I jumped in front of her, raising my arms and letting out twin beams of high-powered blue lightning straight into the heart of the rock. The blue light engulfed it, aging it into sand before it could get to us. The worst we got was a little dirty. I grabbed Sera's hand and started to drag her towards the rapidly-becoming-inaccessible exit. She jerked away.

"What about Liz?" She asked, pointing at the girl. I looked closer, discovering she was actually writhing in pain, electricity covering her body. I frowned, realizing that it would be impossible to get all of us out with Liz in that condition. Sighing and biting my lip, I crouched next to her. I stretched out my hands, hesitating a few inches above her before placing my palms on her head and heart, thinking, _Heal._

As soon as I connected with her, pain like I'd never felt before surged through me. I screamed, trying hard to stay focused on the healing. But all I could feel was a transfer of energy. All her pain, all her anger and sadness and guilt for everything was flowing into me. I felt myself lift off the ground, blue and green energy vying for control on and in my body. I had no control whatsoever. I screamed again and felt the energy consume me, penetrating my body and mind and causing everything to become pain. I had no thoughts. I had no feelings. I had no _me_ anymore. The last bit of pain tipped me over the edge and I fell into a white light. And then there was nothing. I didn't feel the strong hands that caught my lifeless body as my soul fell away into the light.

**Yeah so I'm thinking this is the second-to-last chapter. And Izzy got to be a hero! Yay! But she also died in the process. Boo! Except not so much for those of you who hate Isabella. Also, I know I promised that Steph/Aria could kill Izzy, but it just didn't work out in this one, I'm sorry. Maybe next time . Anyway, REVIEW!**


	35. Changes

**Last chapter! You know, probably. And then I have the epilogue to write so it's not totally done yet, but whatever. Also, I forgot a lot of stuff so I'm sorry if I say something I already said or redo something in another form. I also forgot what color Mercy's hair is so I'm going to make it silver. Once again, I apologize for any mistakes. All mistakes are entirely the fault of the evil Master, who I have as yet said not much about. And yes, that sentence made perfect sense.**

3rd person pov

The girl woke up to unfamiliar surroundings. She was in a room lying on a couch. There were several other couches in the room, all of them taken by other kids. Most of them were around eleven, twelve, or thirteen years old. There was a silver-haired girl about twelve who looked like she was the one in charge. There were a couple boys lounging on the couch across from her. One had a Ferb-like head with blond hair and a jaded expression on his face, the other was a red-headed kid wearing black skinny jeans with silver chains, a grey skin-tight shirt and a black leather jacket who looked about thirteen. An Indian-looking kid was putting back together a laser gun that he had recently taken apart, a frustrated look on his face. Leaning on the wall behind him was a girl with a sour look on her face. Between the couch and the girl who'd just woken up was a smaller girl with a blank look on her face, reminding the other girl of Ferb. But the ones who caught her eye the most were the two on either side of the silver-haired girl. They both had slightly triangular heads, and were glaring at each other whenever possible. The silver-haired girl frowned, lighting her pointer fingers on fire and touching them to the boys. Both of them jerked back in response. The red-headed kid laughed and the triangle-headed kid closest to the girl glared at him.

"Shut up." He said.

"Wacha gonna do about it, Flynn?" The red-head snorted. Phineas raised a hand, pushing towards the red-head, who was picked up and thrown against the wall, the concrete cracking around his head. The red-head clutched his neck gasping for air. The silver-haired girl tackled Phineas to the ground, slamming a shard of ice into his arm and drawing blood. He kicked her off, pushing himself up and facing her in an attack position. The red-head fell back onto the couch, rubbing his neck.

The girl watched all of this in silence, only moving into a sitting position. Just as soon as Phineas and the silver-haired girl lunged at each other, the door with no handle opened. The two backed off quickly, going back to the couch where they had been previous to the fight. A girl with strawberry blond hair and a bright pink tank top over white short shorts walked in.

"Good Morning, Vanessa." The girl said to Vanessa Doofinshmirtz, who was sitting on the couch. Vanessa nodded, looking down at herself.

"Um, why am I…younger?" Vanessa asked. She was eighteen, but she looked like a fifteen-year-old again.

"We had some…issues. One of the chambers collapsed and you were hit with a random beam of the Garcia-Shapiro girl's power. It was set to 'age', but something happened when it passed through the force field and it unaged you instead."

"So…I'm Ferb's age now." Vanessa said slowly. She didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Yes. Oh, I'm sorry, you haven't met anyone yet." The girl pointed a manicured nail in turn to all the kids in the room. "The red-head with the chains is Flare, he had magma powers, the kid next to him is Thor, who is naturally good with tools, that's Thaddeous, same, the Indian kid is Baljeat, I think you've met, the girl behind him is Arianna or Aria Flynn, she's a teleporter and personal messenger from the Master, the little girl is Kristin, that's Mercy, and you know Phineas." Vanessa lifted a hand in a wave, but the younger boy didn't respond to her, instead focusing his eyes on the teenager in the middle of the room.

"Why don't you introduce yourself?" He asked sullenly. Vanessa was taken aback by his attitude. Was this really the Phineas Flynn who always looked on the bright side and could never stop smiling? He sure didn't look it in his dark jeans and skin-tight black shirt that had some weird zombie-gore picture on it.

"He's right." The girl in front of Vanessa forced her to turn her attention away from the new Phineas. "My name is Camille, and I'm the leader of Destiny's Children, which is this group right here."

"Uh-huh. And what does 'this group' do exactly?" Vanessa asked. Camille laughed.

"We destroy things." She said. "Starting with the World Division, and ending with the World."

…

Isabella woke up in her own bed in her own house like nothing had happened. She wished that that was true. She hoped it was true. She got up and took a shower, brushing her hair and changing into her usual pink jumpsuit dress. She turned on the TV in her bedroom as she hunted for her pink belt.

"And a huge chunk of downtown Danville has mysteriously collapsed causing major flooding and traffic accidents. Officials are still uncertain as to the cause of the tragedy–" Isabella turned the TV off, holding the remote towards the small machine as if she could make the last couple days disappear.

"Oh, you're up. Good."

Isabella held back a shriek as she turned to see Beovulph at her door.

"how did you get in here?" She asked once her heart started beating normally again.

"Easy. I used Phineas and Ferb's molecular transporter." He walked over to her. "It was pretty bad, Izzy." He said softly. "We barely made it out alive. Once we did, we went to where the Transistor was supposed to be, but it was already gone. Someone got there before us. But it wasn't one of the WD, we would've known by now." He sighed. "Liz and Josh are still pretty upset."

"I bet." Isabella looked down, tears springing to her eyes. "Is everyone else okay?"

"We never found Buford, but Baljeat, Vanessa, and Phineas showed up later. They're okay. They escaped from the WD a little after we did. No one knows where the WD is now, though." He put a hand on her shoulder. "It was really brave of you to go after Sera and Liz." Isabella looked up at him.

"I…I died though, trying to heal Liz?" She took a deep breath. "I remember…I remember leaving my body. I remember Heaven. I remember dying. So what changed that?" Beovulph came close to her, so close that she could feel his body heat warming her skin.

"I did." He said. "I used a certain technique I learned a long time ago to restart your heart once we were out of the chamber." He turned her tear-streaked face up. "What's the matter Izzy?"

"I…I just wish things could go back to the way they were." She said softly. "I can't believe it…it's past Phineas' birthday. He spent it trying to save the world from his dad. That must have sucked…he got into a fight with his brother for the first time, and he lost three of his friends. Happy birthday, Phineas." She laughed bitterly. Beovulph nodded in agreement, then shifted uncomfortably.

"There's…actually something else I need to tell you…" He said. "It's about your parents…and you."

…

Ferb Fletcher was staring at the wall. He was sitting on his bed with a stunned look on his face. He couldn't believe what was happening. This could not be happening. A hand was suddenly on his shoulder, announcing the arrival of his step-brother. Ferb didn't look at the boy, too afraid his eyes would tell him what was going on.

"I know." Phineas' words surprised the green-haired teen. He looked at his brother, who was uncharacteristically dressed in a plain black shirt and navy blue jeans. "I know, Ferb. Do you really think something like that could slip my notice?" Ferb smiled wanly.

"I'm sorry, Phineas. I don't have to–"

"I think you should go." Phineas interrupted. Ferb stared at the boy, stunned.

"You…you…" He stammered.

"I think you should go." Phineas repeated. "Living with your mom is something you've never gotten the chance to do before, and something you may never get the chance to do again. I understand. Go." The red-head sat down beside his brother, brushing up against him. "I'll miss you, a lot. But you deserve this more than anyone else I know. Just think of all the cool things you'll get to do with your sister and your mom being spies…" Phineas looked away. "Don't stay because of me. I'll be fine." Ferb turned and hugged his brother as hard as he could, trying and failing to keep back the tears that flowed from his eyes.

"I'll never forget you." Ferb said. "And I'm coming back, don't you think I won't."

"I'll be here." Phineas said, a solemn look on his face that would have Ferb questioning his brother's motives had he been able to see it. Phineas didn't want Ferb to go. And in any other circumstances he would have been trying to stop it. But Phineas had a gift. He could predict what was coming. And what was coming was not good for anyone in the Tri-State Area, or the United States. If there was even a chance of his brother being spared that, he would take it. Phineas just wished that his other friends and family were that easy to protect.

…

"We're going to Mexico."

Phineas didn't turn around when Beovulph spoke. He had known he was coming.

"Who is 'we'?" Phineas asked.

"Isabella's family. I…arranged it." Beovulph answered. Phineas smirked.

"Good for you. When can you leave?" He asked.

"Tomorrow." Beovulph replied. Phineas didn't turn as Beovulph waited for an answer, didn't turn as footsteps walked away, didn't turn as the gate closed behind him. Phineas only turned once he was certain Beovulph was nowhere in sight. Staring at the house across the street, Phineas had to fight down the urge to run over there, to find Isabella and hold her close and tell her….tell her… _Tell her what?_ Phineas asked himself. _What is this feeling that I get when I think about her? How would I explain to her all that she means to me?_ He sighed. _Is this what LOVE feels like?_ After a pause, Phineas walked back into the house to spend the last hours before Emma showed up with Ferb. Phineas Flynn had seen too many times at close range the damage LOVE could do. He didn't believe it was a good thing. He didn't believe in it at all.

**Okay so that's the end of this chappie. The end of this story is up next. I am on a ROLL today HAHA! So Izzy's back, but she's leaving Danville. So is Ferb. What does Phineas see in the future? What's going to happen to everyone who stays in Danville? In two words: bad things. Stay tuned for the epilogue and a sneak peek after that!**


	36. Epilogue

**Okay so this is actually a little more of a sneak peek in itself than an epilogue, so yeah. The next book is going to be a major time jump and this will help you see a little of what happened in the gap between this book and the next. Originally I was going to have another book here, but you'll just have to get by with the epilogue. Okay, here we go.**

Dear Ferb,

We were on the news again today. Well, not _us_, but us as in our dirty little scheme. It worked like a charm thanks to me and Baljeat. Thaddeus wasn't as much a help as a hindrance. He almost got us caught. Anyway, so we devastated the mall. We did it with a lot of explosives and computer hacking. A lot of people got hurt, less got killed. Camille was upset. She said she wants it to be the other way around. Not many people know that a part of my mind is still mine. I guess it's because I'm only being controlled by Carter and not by the Master.

You wouldn't believe what it's like inside the World Division. Nobody trusts anybody, and everyone would stab you in the back for a promotion. I think something big is going to happen soon. Camille doesn't tell us much, but she told me and Mercy that there's going to be big changes coming soon, starting with knocking off Carter, or breaking his hold on us. Whichever causes more pain for him.

The Master seems to be the only one who isn't interested in blackmail or backstabbing. Maybe because he's already made it to the top. No one ever sees him, except Aria, whose so under his control she couldn't get out if there was a tiny part of her brain still free enough to try. As far as I know he has his claws in every one of the World Division operatives except the High Command, Mercy, Vanessa, and me. I don't know why Mercy, Van and me aren't zombies, but I think it has something to do with Camille's plan.

It's bad now, but it's going to get worse. If we don't break Carter's hold soon, I won't have enough strength to keep fighting him, and then he'll see everything that I've been doing in my free time. You don't remember this, but we went to another dimension once, and Candace was the leader of the resistance. I'm trying to do something like that, start an underground movement. Because if we don't do something fast, there won't be time to train anyone or tell them what they're supposed to do. The Master has everything figured out. He has a master plan that he hasn't told anyone. I just hope that whatever we can do will be enough to stop him, slow him down. But I can't go into this expecting to come out alive. If the World Division doesn't kill me, my own resistance members might. Neither of them can know about my other life. If they do, they'll never trust me long enough for me to explain the situation. I wish you could tell me what to do, but I know that you can't. Not only because you're in England, far away from this (though between you and me it's not far enough), but because I can never send these letters. The Master monitors our every move, even the letters and emails and texts we send. If I tried to get something to you, we'd all be in danger. All I can do is hope you stay out of this.

From,

Phineas

**Not the best ending, I know, but I couldn't think of anything else to end it with. Plus, I suck at endings. And beginnings unless I start in the middle of a fight. Okay, next book I swear I won't mess up like I did with this one and Discovery where I say something and then don't follow it up. Next time it'll be reliable, kay? Also, everyone who has an outer oc in this series needs to resend me physical features like hair and eye color. I…kinda…lost them…yeeeeaaah. Thanks! REVIEW!**


	37. Preveiw: The Return

"My name is Isabella Garcia-Shapiro. Could you please tell me exactly what's going on here?" I asked. The man looked up at me, a tired look on his hopeless face.

"You're new around here, aren't you?" He asked.

"Yes, yes I am." I replied. "Why?"

"The entire United States has been taken over by the World Division. Danville is under the jurisdiction of Carter Henele. Our only hope is Destiny's Children and the other rebels." He sighed and turned away slowly. "I don't know how you got here, but your best bet is to go back there immediately."

"Who are Destiny's Children?" I asked.

"They're a group of rebels who formerly belonged to the World Division. They all have a price on their heads. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to work." His figure was hunched over and he looked around eighty. Making people like him work was a crime in itself.

"Wait." I stopped him. "Do you know anyone named Phineas Flynn?" The man's eyes widened and he backed away, staring at me in horror.

"Stay-stay away from me!" He yelled, running off with surprising speed for someone of his age.

"Wait! What are you running from?" I called, but he was already gone.

"He's running from you." I turned to see a shadowy figure coming towards me. I backed up a step. "Who are you?" I asked.

"It's me, Isabella. Beovulph." The teenager stepped into the light.

"you haven't changed a bit." I gasped. He was still sixteen, even though the last time I'd seen him at that age was two years ago, one year after my family had left Danville. He laughed.

"No. I haven't. But you have, and so has Danville. So has Phineas. If you want to survive, follow me and don't let anyone know you knew him." Beovulph turned and beckoned for me to follow him. I hurried to catch up.

"Why not? What happened here? And why can' t I tell anyone that I know Ph-" Beovulph put a finger to my lips.

"Remember what I said. Don't even say his name."

"But why not?"

"Because he's the one Carter and the others want the most. He's the leader of Destiny's Children."

**The Shadow Chronicles: The Return**


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